My RPG Timeline: 2017-2019

Continued from that last post I made just minutes ago.

2017

Live-A-Live (#49) was started pretty much after Christmas of 2016, and went on into this year: 2017. Around this time I was contemplating a plan for what games I want to try out afterwards, formulating a schedule that only I am familiar with, while leaving people who viewed my TheTopTens profile just wondering what game I played next. I knew #50 had to be a special game, so I went with the revered Final Fantasy VII. Apart from FF1 (#2) and FF4 (#4) and all the FFLs (which are SaGa games) this was the only Final Fantasy game that didn't go by my mantra of playing a FF game on a multiple of 5, but I could care less about that.

From there, I went all the way to The Legend of Dragoon (#60) during my spring semester in 2017. I do have to admit, my grades were dropping at this point, and that was NOT a good thing. I should have spent less time gaming all the time, but there was so much to play and I focused on it quite often. Of course, I spent a lot of time studying too, I had five courses to juggle around, and unfortunatly I had that one professor who never helped students or answered questions via email. But I will say that I did beat Hydlide (#53) in a single day (well two days, but I took a break during half of one day and finished the other half another day so it still counts).

At the time I was playing the long game The Legend of Dragoon, I also got a new summer job, albeit a crummy hotel one where I was overworked and underpaid. During the times I was home I finished The Legend of Dragoon, played Romancing SaGa (#61) until I got through the intros, then revisited Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (#62), a game I played in my childhood that took me only two days to beat. Heh, I remember doing that when I was in 5th grade. Afterwards were Kartia (#63), Paper Mario (#64) and Final Fantasy V (#65) before I decided to quit that horrible job that did not treat me well. You can tell I wanted Paper Mario to be my 64th RPG.

By the time I played Suikoden IV (#66) I was starting a fall semester at college. And I did a little better even though the classes were harder and there was an intensive group project I was off and on about. I remember beating Vagrant Story's (#70) main story on my birthday in November, and did some postgame stuff afterwards, the December portion of my semester was spent on Phantasy Star III (#71), and I started Soul Nomad & The World Eaters (#72) near the tail end of that semester. I managed to somehow beat it before the year's end, but since I was so vexed by how amazing it was, the next year I played bits and pieces of the game in between other RPGs playing it for some new game stuff before deciding to stop playing for now.

So I went from #49 to #72, which was quite a number of reviews done in 2017, that number being a total of 24 games done. That was somehow more than the last year by about four RPGs. Nice!

2018

The snow outside caused much of my last semester at the four-year university to have closing, and it gave me a lot of time to just play some more games. While I replayed parts of Soul Nomad this year, I played Langrisser II (#73), Growlanser III (#74), and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (#75) before deciding to just strictly play one game again. I had some pretty hard classes for my last semester, and I did something insanely risky during some of the games, notably 7th Saga (#77) and Romancing SaGa 2 (#78). Because I'm aware of how much grinding I did, I would play the game while simultaneously doing my schoolwork on my tablet. Miraculously the class I did the extensive work on I actually got an A in, and I did decently enough to keep my GPA above 3.0 right as I graduated. I ended up finishing Suikoden Tactics (#81) by the time I officially graduated from the four-year university.

Around this time there was a major shift in what I had to do, as I got accepted into a position that had me moving up north to a more corporate location to do some coding training for a new position. I knew I had to finish up Suikoden Tactics, because I won't be seeing my computer for a long time afterwards, if even at all. Basically I brought along an HP laptop, one that was capable of playing most emulators EXCEPT the PS2 ones, and had to formulate which games I will play over there.

Needless to say I only ever played one (Shining in the Darkness, #82), while living in the apartment there. The training was extremely intensive and required all of my concentration and it STILL kicks my ass. I ended up having to tell them this really wasn't the path I wanted after all through the experience I had, and I ended up going home. Before I went home though, I should mention, I actually started this blog in June of this year. I had intended to hopefully get some money out of it, but I don't care if I do or not to be honest. I just like to write now.

So in June of 2018 I was jobless, trying to find the thing I wanted most, all the while playing Romancing SaGa 3 (#83), Rhapsody (#84), and starting Final Fantasy VIII (#85). Around that time I got a retail job that payed very little but at least treated me properly, and I also somehow landed a housekeeping position at the same time. I tried my luck tackling both positions and doing well in both, ending up finishing FF8 and starting Dual Orb 2 (#86) at that time.

My retail position was only temporary and it ended up being finished in just a month. But I did land the position that I still have to this day, a really nice position where I tutor students in the public schools, getting to know what problems they have and helping them solve the problems. Around this time, for the rest of 2018, I had the housekeeping position and this one that I currently have now. I played Treasure of the Rudras (#87) in October, Earthbound ZERO (#88) for the rest of October to the beginning of November, Dragon Quest III (#89) for much of November through my birthday, and Skies of Arcadia (#90) in most of December. I formulated a plan to play the MOTHER games for my 88th, 99th, and 111th games, just because I want to follow weird patterns.

So the summary for 2018 in terms of RPGs played goes from #73 to #90. This was only 18 games played, which was definitely a small number. But I had so much going on, people expecting me to do so much. Thank god I found a good path to switch to.

2019

In the latter half of 2018 I started Phantom Brave (#91), and that went through January of 2019. I started Phantasy Star IV (#92) at the tail end of that month, through the start of February. Tenchi Muyo (#93) was short, and I got through Dragon Quest IV (#94) quickly around the time March came by. Much of March was taken up by me playing Final Fantasy Tactics (#95). I then played up to Earthbound (#99), before my current position ended. It was a school year position after all, and it ended in June, but I asked if I can come again for the next school year with more hours and that's exactly what I've been doing by then.

I had to contemplate what my 100th RPG would be. It had to be quite well-revered, and it obviously wasn't Earthbound which I was currently playing as my 99th. So I went with The World Ends With You, a game I hear about while looking up numerous tropes and wondering just how good it was. Well, it was good! I ended up beating it just before US Independence Day, and it took up quite a lot of time in June. Around the time I finished it I was also investing in Pokemon ROM hacks out of curiosity, and I have since stopped that for a bit since I'm not interested in it at the moment, but from Robotrek (#101) to Secret of the Stars (#107) I played some ROM hacks during times I didn't feel like playing the RPGs I was playing.

That stopped once I started Suikoden V (#108). I knew it was a long game, so I refrained from playing Pokemon ROM hacks and invested a lot of time into Suikoden V, playing it for much of September and October, then went to Star Ocean: Blue Sphere (#109) or at least as much as I could before I got annoyed with the unfinished translation. Then the unthinkable happened. My virus scanner effectively killed the usage of all applications on my computer (including itself) and I was completely screwed from doing anything. It took a few days in October to fix it up, and now my operating system is Windows 10 and it runs a lot smoother (though I think my dad may have overclocked my machine, as it has some crashing at times). I basically am thankful I had a flash drive with almost all of my important files, my backup of RPGs, my music files, my emulators, and the games I wanted to keep.

And things got better as I finally got back into the job that I loved for the last school year, this time getting more hours and more travel, and it certainly feels wonderful. I played Secret of Mana (#110), beat it before November, beat MOTHER 3 (#111) during the first half of November, the Deep Dungeon games (#112, #113, and #114) during the rest of November, and December was the month where I took all my time to invest in Final Fantasy IX (#115). It is definitely the last game I played this year, as while my 116th RPG will be Dragon Quest VI, I certainly won't be able to finish it within the two days we have before the next year!

So there you have it, my 2019 RPG record goes from #91 to #115, which is 25 games done. A prolific year! And yes, we've reached the end of this two-part autobiographical look back at all the stuff I did during the 2010s as far as RPGs go.