A look back at: Last Bible III

I might as well preface this by saying that yes, it's been quite a while since the last RPG lookback, and it boils down to real-life commitments and SO MANY OTHER THINGS. Not only am I accepting a long-term position which greatly prevents me from really enjoying more game time, but I'm also doing another Pokemon ROM hack walkthrough and doing a ton of planning ahead for two different jobs. My 200th RPG to play is going to take a while perhaps, but I will see if I can muster as much time as possible to getting to it. Be warned, it could be months, maybe by summer I would finish my 200th.

So anyways, Last Bible III is a perfect example of a culmination. It started with two lackluster games on the Game Boy Color, and then moved to the Super Famicom where the graphics are greener and the music is prettier. Oh won't you please take it to the home console?

But the quality-of-life improvements to Last Bible III make it a significantly better experience in gameplay. Finally the monsters you recruit have an emoji and a progress bar showing how you can do negotiations much easier than a guessing game of yes or no. You can even level up the monsters and equip them, allowing for endless possibilities. And there's plenty of characters who join your cause, not just plot-wise, but being able to pick the best characters for the big moments is always a plus. This is despite having a somewhat traditional and linear SNES JRPG progression.

And this game honestly delivers quite well for what it holds. Sure, the translation is going to house the usual curse word cause the translators get goofy sometimes. Sure, there's the ocassional call-back to previous Last Bible games, despite Last Bible III taking place a whopping 20,000 years after the second game. But Last Bible III is effective at hooking the interested JRPG player, something that the previous games could have done better in. You see the introduction, and while it's very reminiscent of FF6's intro in the snowfall and such, it shows the bleakness of what's to come. This is despite green grass and humdrum village life at first. Of course, your parent is a prodigy like DQ5's Papas, you have a brother like countless RPGs, a nerdy kid not unlike Earthbound's Jeff, a girl who has a crush on you like countless RPGs, the usual robot and dragon party member like countless RPGs, and while not necessarily new, the seasoned RPG player will get hooked at their inclusions. And then you have faces you see come and go, some unfortunately die and you feel for them as you have lost such a fantastic character at that point. You see villains that you just want dead cause you know how bad they get. Then they twist you several times. Heck, even THE MAIN CHARACTER DIES! Yes, your actual main character is killed in the game, something that most RPGs that aren't Chrono Trigger wouldn't actually think of doing, no matter how close it could get. Hey, at least he gets to meet his parents who also end up dying prior to him, and even better, his own younger brother resurrects the group, being a child prodigy of his own. Oh, and that guy from the beginning? Actually kind of surprising he became a vengeful son of a gun bent on destroying everything, even when you defeat and kill his main nemesis he decides to have it out on humanity. But killing his undead spirit does bring him around. We actually have a wonderful epilogue at the end of it all too.

I'm telling you all, it's a culmination, and actually worth it despite the translation barrier and all. It culminates in things you know, but can appreciate, and even ties together things from previous titles. Things really worked out well for this game.

A look back at: Last Bible II

Sorry if this one took longer than expected! Or not. I really could care less about this one. Last Bible II thankfully was playable fully with English translation with the occasional swear word, but even discounting all of that what you get is basically Last Bible I (for those who forgot, Revelations: The Demon Slayer) but with newer characters, plot, and music. The gameplay is almost totally the same, the only super duper difference that I could find was the usage of eggs, where you have one get beaten in combat to make a good monster hatch. Otherwise, you're better off figuring out how to recruit and how to fuse monsters, or just get the super ones from bones like the Dragon or Kirin or so. Those still work.

Sequel games are always weird to play. This one is one of those "thousands of years later" sequels, but it still has a weird plot where everyone who is playable is connected in some weird way that almost rivals that of how the characters in FF8 were all familiar with each other. Here, the main ones are basically going "we fought together at one point thousands of years ago but lost and everyone died" and now they're reincarnated somehow in this case. Also the main character himself happens to be the resurrection of a beast king, and appropriately a corrupt human king and his more corrupt advisor try to kill you. Using demons. Which ends up in demons killing them. Because of course evil humans don't know how to control evil demons properly. There was zero character development in the first game, but here, we get a little bit more. Yuri is still a silent protagonist like El, but the other characters are more talkative, the rambunctious Safia has her reasons for being who she is, while the more concerning Krau and Ganzu have their reasons for being who they are, and then there's Esau who's clearly trying to go somewhere important. Gotta love how everyone gets the Force. Okay, not THAT Force, but whatever.

Bottom line is, this wasn't that good of a sequel game. Almost nothing new gameplay wise, it's not gonna appeal to anyone who just wasn't a fan of the previous game, and considering how many of this type of turn-based RPG I've done so far, I can relate to it not being as good.

A look back at: Revelations: The Demon Slayer

My first RPG of 2025! Wonderful how I was supposed to do Devil Summoner, but couldn't find a single English translation that could work. This game, part of the Last Bible series and supposedly a lot easier, ended up replacing it, but yes, I am crowing through this franchise as best as I truly can. This game actually could be a whole lot quicker overall for me, but at the end of the day, it was because I was also simultaneously enjoying other things like Super Monkey Ball rom hacks and what not. Oh, you don't care about that stuff! Let's talk about this game.

...and basically a whole lack of things that are actually interesting about it. This is a very simple RPG, going for the top-down view instead of the usual first-person dungeon crawler the original series is known for. The talking to monsters (yes, monsters, not demons) is the only true holdover from SMT, along with a primitive usage of fusion and sorting of things. The game's got only two companions, with almost zero character development all across the board. The music would be normally fine but gets kinda boring after a while, since every town uses the same music as does every dungeon. The game's plot is basically a journey to find your missing mentor, who seems to be a conspiracy theorist against who are supposedly good guys, and it turns out your mentor is of course right all along. Gameplay is average on the whole, you have the opportunity to grind at any point for equipment like I did, gaining tons of levels and learning spells as needed. Recruiting monsters is a simple set of four yes or no questions, while fusing monsters is fun for experimentation. Others have said that the latter part of recruiting monsters isn't as necessary, although I think it could be for getting Amon, Kirin, and Dragon, the three best non New Game+ monsters, to their highest potential. The last few bosses have tons of HP, so having them along to take blows is what I aimed to do. It all worked out. No intention of playing through a New Game+ though.

Blog Timeline 2024

Remember when I said that I hated 2022? Now remember when I said that I hated 2023? Well, you can guess that I hate 2024. I lived through it, thankfully, but I've been basically grinding my ass off keeping the EXACT SAME work positions and getting basically nowhere. So when I have the time to write on this blog, it's entirely due to completing a game, though I did make one fine and formative post about one game in particular. Oh and in case you're new to this whole blog, yeah, this is a gaming blog. 2024 was, well it was a year I didn't like, but it was one where I gamed a TON. You'll see quite easily in a moment. The primary reason this was my gaming year was that I decided to actually game while at work more often. Dangerous, yet I get stuff done. Honestly I would much rather get paid a whole lot more for this, if I had the right platforms, but there's always gimmicks to that kind of stuff too and I feel relatively comfortable that a good change could happen in 2025 soon enough to prevent debt.

Doomwiki: As usual I provide the template in adding in secret descriptions and anyone can re-edit things to make them more descriptive if that's their thing. Ever since December 10th's Cacowards I am actively trying to mull through anything that currently has a redlink on Doomwiki, and am still doing it into the new year. But when these new mods get pages, my descriptions are already ready. For added bonus, I even did all of RAMP 2024's secret descriptions, even though it's probably not gonna get individual map pages any time soon.

Music: My favorite released this year were a small EP from 10 Years and Erra's Cure. That's actually it. A lull year when it came to stuff I really, really enjoyed.

What I've been watching: Nothing much aside from movie reruns and all that. Lame again. But like, I'm not that into most TV shows anyways. I did finish the 20th Pretty Cure seasonn, Hirogaru Sky, which actually was a very good season with many norms being busted and had plenty of stakes going for it. Then, in December, in just a single day, I finished watching Otona PreCure, the adult-oriented season where the first three generations of Cures are now adults, but still transform and such. Just 12 episodes there, and I'm glad it was short and enjoyable in a way.

ROM Hacks: Only 4 were done today in terms of Pokemon ROM hacks. First was Polka Aqua 2, an experience that went over the top in a number of ways but was a lot alike its prequel. Then I went ahead and got girly with the Moemon hacks. Specifically Mega Moemon Fire Red, which of course was Fire Red but with Gens 1-6 and with fun sprites and QoL things around. Moemon Liquid Crystal followed, this was just Liquid Crystal but with worser Moemon sprites and no actual gameplay changes. This was a hack I didn't even bother to review. But for my 50th ROM hack review, it was something that blew up on Reddit. Yeah, I'm on there now if you didn't know, but it was Pokemon Emerald Seaglass. Couldn't find it in the forums, so it was actually something people talked about on Reddit. And it's...Emerald but done in the style of Gen-2 spritework but still keeping most mechanics intact while adding in some more modern things like Z-moves and such. I have made guides for Polka Aqua 2 and a simple walkthrough for Seaglass (since there's plenty of documentation overall). These are the Pokemon ROM hacks, and while I primarily focus on these, I'll also say that I've been churning through custom levels for the Gamecube game Super Monkey Ball 2. I remember owning this game a long time ago and I thought finally now I'd give some of these extremely hard levels a try. As far as I know I'll only play these while I'm at home since my frustrations cannot be seen at work.

RPGs: As I said, this was totally my year, especially with regards to RPGs! Last year I got 13 done, this year it went up to 18. Most of what I had said last time that I would get to, I actually did indeed get to. I finished up the Arc the Lad series starting with 3 and then going to Twilight of the Spirits. I played Tales of Symphonia as previously planned. I am currently churning through as many games that make up the bulk of the Megami Tensei franchise, having done 5 games so far! I also did two Final Fantasy games, X-2 and Crystal Chronicles, as well as two Alundra games and another Shining Force game. So much progress! But with it comes likely changes, and I did announce that after I was finished with Crystal Chronicles in particular I plan to check out more franchises than just Final Fantasy or so. And Fire Emblem is on the bucket list for later. Along with quite a few others, like Heroes of Might & Magic, other spinoffs of CRPGs, the rest of the Megami Tensei franchise (if I can, I found out that quite a few games have no translations or so!), and Ultima. It's endless, but I damn well will get to what I can.

Other games: Removing my platformers section cause I did not actually play any platformers this time around. Unless you count Super Monkey Ball as one. It's an arcade game with platforming elements, but, like, you don't jump or anything, so I'm not counting it. During my winter break I am churning through the ROM hacks though. Speaking of modded games, another thing I do on occasion is ALTTP Randomizer. It's a nice randomizing experience, as I have not done any randomizers in any games yet, since I'd rather play ordinary games through, but I find it the most fun so far. Finally, and this is the big one, Freelancer. This was another game like SMB and ALTTP that was from my childhood, and for years I have played as a kid until I started playing Discovery mod, having fun with it even though I just play singleplayer for exploration and fake roleplay. I stopped playing due to having the thing crash multiple times. With my brand new computer, I am unable to use compact discs, as does everyone else with a Windows 11 machine, but at least I can prove to others I have the disc itself as I downloaded online, played the campaign again with HD graphics, and got the newest Discovery mod which has, dare I say it, regressed somewhat. But that regression might not be a bad thing, as I am not dealing with crashes and exploration and NPC interactions have differed greatly and things DO feel balanced. I am currently enjoying this, and one thing I love about the game is how I can set myself to cruise and do other things while the thing is on autopilot. Meaning this was one game I left on while I did my jobs or so! Man, I have a lot of fun when I'm not stressed out trying to improve my life.

Overall, 2024 was an extremely productive (if you consider gaming productive) year for me. I multitasked like a mofo, and by that I mean writing posts, reading news, managing classes, applying for jobs, doing my current jobs, and playing ALL of my games all at once. I like to live dangerously but I get a ton of things done doing so.

A look back at: Shin Megami Tensei If...

 

What if Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei II never occurred? What if we got ourselves a side story that somehow ends up being the chassis for not one, but TWO spinoffs to SMT? Welcome to Shin Megami Tensei If... A game highly centered around a Japanese high school that just so happens to be involved in the turmoil of what could be a demonic invasion. And it's all because of one bullied kid.

This game will of course have the mechanics of its predecessors, coupled with the strange audacity of not getting a game over when you die but try to offer you a crutch in new guardians to boost or lose stats. Strange, and that's exactly how it would be described. That and the fact that this game had me looking up guide after guide like no other. Of course I had to get into the demon fusions again, but also the guardians you get upon dying do depend on stats or who dies first, you or your partner, among other things. There's somehow a lot to take in. And with that all said SMT If... isn't even that big of a game in hindsight. You have the seven deadly sins representing domains, but can only explore five since Lust isn't even shown and two of them (Wrath and Envy) are mutually exclusive due to whoever is your partner. And amazingly, the game decides to differentiate your experience based on who's your partner. The best mileage comes from Reiko, who happens to be the one who has the most overall connection to Ideo Kazama, the main bad guy. There's of course the mishmash of the demons, both fusion and lore-wise, and the crazy science teacher for some reason won't stop bothering you throughout the game either. He's a kook, but a funny one, that.

They did quite a good job in representing the deadly sins as domains, maybe too much so. I'm looking at you, Sloth domain. Oh yeah, it's gonna involve waiting. Who the hell likes that crap? Waiting for idiotic NPCs to get through a total moon cycle or so, involving walking back and forth, and so on. The Greed domain is a cool mechanic, make the boss of this domain a lot harder by getting more chests, you can minimize or maximize your run here, though maximizing makes a boss that's probably harder than the overall final boss in that regard. And in Gluttony, yeah, it involves a fat monster eating you, but only after you use shrinking goo (called Micro Plasma, but whatever). So hey, they will take things in a sense that will make you remember them. But that Sloth domain, never again. Waiting isn't fun.

Anyways, I only went the route of Reiko and didn't bother with the new game plus route of Akira. Reiko's route is a lot like Yumi's but with extra backstory scenes, while Charlie does have some interesting scenes but ultimately not enough fluff. This game will ease me into another spinoff series that I will eventually play, and it is an interesting experience for sure.

A look back at: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

This is it, at least for now with regards to the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole for me. I have played many games, but considering other franchises I have yet to touch as well as these games being on the more modern systems and such, I need to talk a break from reviewing Final Fantasy games this much. And I ended on, shall I say, a rather peculiar title. A spinoff if you will, one that garnered a number of sequels plus a remaster in short time, but ended up fading into obscurity anyways. The one Final Fantasy title to be on the Gamecube, this game ended up being a hack-and-slash action RPG. Which I think I established with Digimon World 4 that I am just not a real fan of that kind of genre anymore. Especially when this is another game that was meant for multiplayer.

Or, is it? I played this singleplayer like with DW4, but it's got such a complex system for those playing multiplayer that to this day I wonder how one could get up to three friends, have a full link cable and have all the buddies hook Game Boy Advances to play while the host has his Gamecube on. It's such a weird system to go by just by the peripheries necessary. With singleplayer, I really don't have to do that, though the going is tedious. Battles will be a little longer and I have to be far more managing with what I got. But it was much better to plow through in singleplayer than DW4, and more balanced, so it gets those points.

So much, that I beat it in 10 days from the start! And on the 31st anniversary of Doom no less. You can probably guess I wanted this sucker out of the way so I can focus on other stuff, but I did follow a guide that said to finish the base game by Year 5 (the guide was apparently for the remaster which had a post-game, but I didn't get to experience any of that). The main goal in this game is as follows: travel by caravan to locations, get some better equipment by either buying from shops or by pillaging from enemies, going through the motions of complex dungeons with some puzzles of varying annoyances, battle a boss at the end, and collect myrrh from a tree. Rinse and repeat three times, you get a cute little dance festival and diary entries, and somehow those are quite important as you transition from year to year. With the way AI is in this game, I found it useful to cheese against many, many enemies, though the strongest ones with multiple attacks were the toughest, and you usually get those in the last dungeon by far. There's also the miasma gimmick, and the moogle partner was an okay thing for this game although I really just had him hold the chalice unless I was solving puzzles or something.

The game's got an absolutely killer soundtrack filled with great instrumentation and the composer here deserves a lot of praise, but seems to be forgotten in time. I haven't found a soundtrack for any RPG as good as this since the two Chrono games or any Suikoden game, this is FANTASTIC MUSIC. And it's the best thing about the game arguably, the combat can get tricky but I got the hang of things, and the plot almost entirely is given out thanks to the overall setting, how miasma slowly eats away everything and you as a caravaner get myrrh to keep your home hanging by the threads. The side stuff with other characters is nothing to rave about, the bosses all vary, and the main villain is just something out of nowhere. But as far as a game like this goes, it wasn't bad!

A look back at: Shin Megami Tensei II

I may occasionally suffer from RPG fatigue every now and then, but apparently that does not stop me from doing some more grinding of another game in a franchise. And so I've done it, beaten the second Shin Megami Tensei game which is actually the fourth installment overall. Did it almost everywhere, working two particular jobs but still finding private times to play this game silently, getting more involved in the many things it offers, including its nice story, bass-driven music, and characters.

Oh yeah, there's quality of life everywhere. Characters that are named, even if they are after the Hebrew alphabet for some reason! Branching paths! Recruiting demons! Okay, all this isn't new and quality of life but when you think about it, the stuff that's more of the same is okay in my eyes, even if I have to deal with things like being annoyed with back-to-back squads of enemies, how debilitating status effects can be (goes both ways still), or the extreme annoyance of having demons run away or attack you and you really want them in your party but you can't cause they're pricks who take your stuff or so. No, the real quality of life improvements include things such as a better functioning automap, the addition of front and back rows, demons inheriting skills from fusion, heck, even an indicator for random battles even if it is still somewhat primitive. Impressive for an SNES RPG for that matter, although it won't beat out many favorites of mine. Still, quality of life makes for an impressive sequel.

Impressive, yet I still give it the same grade as Shin Megami Tensei I and Digital Devil Story II. Hah! It does boil down to the obvious difficulty at this point of course, there are always the issues of getting hit with debilitating statuses, having your party members kill themselves with Charm or the usages of Hana and Mudo to ruin my days. And of course final bosses love this. The big game breaker in this game is one I never thought I'd use so darn often, and that's buffing spells! Screw the attacking spells, magic attacks actually sucks against all later bosses, but with buffing of defenses, shielding spells, attacking spells, and the occasional prayer spell which causes divine intervention damage, these things (minus the divine intervention one) turn my main character into a physical powerhouse. A common strategy in many other games, even for speedrunners, but it's one that works out so well! At least, when you're not losing your hero often. Which did happen a lot. The plot of this game did save my frustration from taking over at least, all of the paths DO have you killing the angels and even the true god YHVH. Yeah, they're all back, along with Satan and Lucifer. Choices you make change things around, the Law path has you initially siding with YHVH but Satan sides with you to defeat him. Chaos has you with Lucifer doing that same thing but also killing the denizens of Eden and making things worthwhile for humans and demons. And then of course, the neutral path, the one I took, got the most fun factor.

All things considered, I gotta take a small break from this Megami Tensei stuff. At least for now. I'll return to it some time.