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.

A look back at: Shin Megami Tensei

My birthday tends to often be a day in which I want to deadline my completion of certain things. Okay, today isn't my birthday, but I wanted to finally get through with Shin Megami Tensei before then. And so I did, today, and amusingly enough while on the clock as well. This game honestly should not have taken over a month, but I get extremely busy with other things, plus my return to Freelancer has me playing that a whole lot. Budgeting time ends up being a big hurdle in what I do nowadays, huh.

Anyways, it's a good thing I played Digital Devil Story 2, because this game is actually just that except on the SNES. Annoyingly, the guide I followed for this game was awful, it had barely any recommendations for what demons to recruit, so I just picked the ones that had the best HP values. Making matters worse, well there's a ton of things, but fusing demons didn't get me anywhere truly substantial. And like the other games, you want to keep your human characters healthy as much as possible, meaning grinding to give them better stats and also just plain keeping them out of trouble, since your heroine has the important spells and your hero has the computer.

I felt a lot of annoyance with this game's encounter rate, so much more than Digital Devil Story 2. Almost every step was an encounter, and you get back-to-back encounters very, very frequently. I ended up overloaded on both makka and magnetite as a result, so those weren't really worrisome (though those last few shops have the best equipment in the hundreds of thousands of makka, my god). Figuring out which branching path, law, chaos, or neutral, was tough at first, but I eventually settled for neutral since it seems to cover the most baggage, plus it kills everyone! How fun. But of course, all that damn grinding, it takes a toll on me. And heck, the alignment screws up how I would even recruit some demons. There were ones I absolutely wanted, but the way my alignment leaned prevented me from doing so. And even then, the demons get super stingy and want all sorts of stuff. And others, of course, they'll just leave. Bastards.

And with it comes my traditional RPG fatigue. I really wanted to get it over with at that point, so I used the PAR codes to remove encounters from the last stretch. This helped me explore things without fuss, though there's still the tough bosses. And honestly, should mention that there are bosses that are either immune or have innate reflection of certain skills, so its makes you feel awful for hitting yourself with a mass shock spell effect. This game had a good stride early on, setting the examples for the hero, the law hero, the chaos hero, and the heroine, and to me, it just sort of falls flat once Tokyo gets nuked. Oh, you couldn't avoid that, but you get a cool dream sequence, then have to work your way back through. And things happen, and your alignment makes things go one way or the other. Sometimes you even get locked in at your alignment until you can progress further. This game really does tell you how hard it gets.

A look back at: Pokemon Emerald Seaglass

Yes, that's right. It's another one of those ROM hacks that doesn't change the setting from either Hoenn or Kanto. In this case Hoenn, but you get the idea. This hack despite not providing a new setting ended up with a niche following on Reddit, basically giving players a chance to experience Emerald as if it were done Gen-2 style. Not in a Gen-2 engine, the engine is still Gen-3, but with Gen-2 sprites. That is its main selling point by far.

But sprites aren't gonna impress me as much as gameplay. So we gotta focus on what was changed in that regard and see what really shone. This game's got a Shiny Charm out of the box? Okay! Though I didn't get shinies, the thought is nice. What about that Gamecube being used as a cheating device or to change up playthroughs? This offers a ton of replayability. Is that a DexNav? One that totally works superbly? Yes! Now we're talking. Catching mons is a pain in most games, but this always makes it easier. There's even following Pokemon and you can set whichever to follow you. Plus your notebook has level caps if you want more challenge. Of course, I would NOT be satisfied if battling your opponents resulted in some sameiness, and it delivered. Mons from Gen-1 to Gen-3 are always available, along with newer evolutions and the Applin and Tinkatink lines for good measure. Maps remain the same, with minor changes here and there regarding some of the newer content, you got a wishing well for example for getting random mons. And the Pokedex is extremely helpful for picking and choosing some of my team members due to showing all the abilities, moves, locations, and evolution methods. There's even Alolan and Galarian forms available.

And the best part is how you can play it any style you want. Nuzlocke, type expert, casual, anything will work. It's what Emerald probably should have been all along. They even keep things that were joyous to begin with, like contests and the Battle Frontier. I have once again made a walkthrough, but this isn't as detailed. Emerald Seaglass has TONS of documentation and I don't need to go over what has already been covered.