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!