So it's almost 2020, things have happened, and I often neglect to look back on exactly what has been going on in the past few years. Luckily for me, my memory of everything is excellent. I remember all the embarassing stuff I did in elementary school, my ability to avoid trouble in middle school despite people hating me for things I no longer care about, and being a generally good and ambitious high school student. Wait a minute, isn't this an RPG-centric blog? What am I even talking about? It's obvious isn't it? I'm reminiscing when I played certain games and what I was also doing around those times.
2014
I started going to community college around this time, starting in fall of 2013, eventually ending at fall of 2015, graduating in December of that year. In 2014 I created an account on TheTopTens, a site I've been lurking on. There was so much to do during this time and I basically went in and started putting up music lists. At the same time I also went ahead with getting a seasonal summer job, one that was okay at best but nowhere close to worthwhile. I think it was around this time I was also playing JRPGs, but I wasn't actually keeping track of any of the games I played. I don't even recall which games I played in 2014 but I do know for certain when I started reviewing them.
2015
It may have been sometime 2015 when I played the game I made the first review on TheTopTens for Threads of Fate (#1), which was during a rather difficult semester where calculus actually kicked my butt for once (I did excellent for the first half). That review I did for Threads of Fate is amazingly outdated now. When I started these reviews, I called them "old RPG reviews" and well they are old, especially when we are going into 2020. The Playstation, SNES, GB, NES, Genesis, all those systems will be 20 years old, with the Playstation 2 and even the Nintendo DS not being far behind. The reviews I made were clunky, following a formula of rating them by gameplay, characters, plot, and music. I spoil a lot of the plot, and describe many different gameplay mechanics and talk only a bit about the music. Bits and pieces of that formula still apply to all my reviews, and I keep a backup of all the reviews I've got.
After the Threads of Fate review I began reminiscing about the JRPGs I played at the time, usually because writing about this stuff is a fun pasttime and that I wanted to be well-known on TheTopTens. From the first to the twenty-first review, I basically reminisced all the stuff I remembered for the games I played during the 2014 and 2015 years. I got my summer job back this year, and I played Wild Arms (#22) at this time. This was important because I basically decided to write a review after playing through each and every game I complete or get close to completing. During those times I was at my seasonal job I played Lufia II (#23), and was playing Wild Arms 2 (#24) before I left to continue my final semester at community college. I beat Lunar 2 (#26) on Halloween, Suikoden (#27) on my birthday, and the last RPG I remember playing was Breath of Fire 4 (#28) before the end of the year came. Also this year, I had attempted to play Warsong (#57) and Secret of the Stars (#107), but quit due to frustration and boredom, respectively. I eventually revisited both games though.
So in 2015 I made 28 reviews, though not all of the games I played were played this year.
2016
I played Wild Arms: Alter Code F (#29) during the tail ends of December going into January. This review marked the change of name to "RPG Review" for a brief moment, because at the time I did not consider the Playstation 2 to be an old system. Also during this time I was transferring from my associates degree to a bachelors by going to a four-year university, thankfully I lived relatively close by, so I didn't have to move at all. During my first semester at the four-year, I spent less time actually playing RPGs, only managing to get from Xenogears (#30) to Suikoden II (#33). I had to focus immensely on the classes I was in of course, but I had quite some time to do some gaming. Xenogears (#30) and Grandia (#32) in particular were very long and grinding games to do.
I ended my first semester around the time I finished Suikoden II (#33) and my parents and I planned a vacation to Universal Studios in Florida (my mother really wanted to experience the Harry Potter attractions if you wanna know) I played no RPGs when I was in Florida, but I did play the GBC Zelda games both before and during the trip as a leisurely pasttime in between the amusement.
Going home I eventually decided to play Odin Sphere (#34). I also started Lufia: The Legend Returns (#36) at the tail end of my playthrough there, playing one game by day and another by night. After finishing Odin Sphere, Wild Arms 3 (#35) became my day game, and amazingly enough, I took even longer with Lufia: The Legend Returns than I did with WA3, so it became #35 and the Lufia 3 became #36. I tried the same formula for the next two RPGs, playing Suikoden III (#38) by night and Sailor Moon: Another Story (#37) by day. I ended up beating the latter game in about a week, and the former in two months. Yeah, it went for that long, plus by the time I started it I started my next semester as well, so that ate a lot of time up. I had to abandon the "play two RPGs" gimmick and just play one game at a time by then.
I did pick up the pace though and beat it, then moved on to the other games. I think I beat Chrono Cross (#40) during the Halloween times, or was it Grandia II (#41)? I don't remember. Once I reached Soul Blazer (#42) I abandoned the "old" moniker for the ones that weren't Playstation 2 titles and just generalized it to "RPG Review" from then on. I then played that game and a lot of smaller ones, with Final Fantasy VI (#45) setting a new benchmark. From FF6, I went ahead and played a Final Fantasy game every time I reach a multiple of 5. Also, I would play a mostly revered RPG on every multiple of 10. This actually started last year when I played Chrono Trigger (#20), then continued with Xenogears, then Chrono Cross.
So Final Fantasy VI was slated to be played late November to December, and it took awhile. However, I sped through several more RPGs, and the last one was the Magic Knight Rayearth RPG (#48) which took only three days to play. This basically closed out 2016 in terms of RPGs for me, I finished #29 and ended with #48, which was a total of 20 games finished that year.
Continued in another post.
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