08.30.07
Victories And Setbacks
For those of you playing Pez’s drinking game, you get two drinks today. That’s all.
Anyway, there are some things I can talk about. The first, and probably most geeky and consumer-whorish, is that I managed to reclaim a copy of Final Fantasy VII last night. I’d had to sacrifice the game back in late 2004 or early 2005, figuring I could easily get it back; it was, after all, all over the PS1 used shelves back then. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t. And then EB and GameStop stopped carrying PS1 titles, and the price shot up to the high $90 range after Dirge of Cerberus came out. Well, the prices have settled down– snagged a near-perfect, non-GH version for $35. I even played a little bit of it last night; just through the first mission and the dialogue establishing that Cloud’s an ass. I got a little nostalgic for the whole affair; ultimately, though, I’m probably not going to go through the game again until my current backlog clears out.
The biggest setback came with regards to Luminous Arc. Yeah, I’d said earlier that the game seemed easy; I was, well, dead wrong. Either I had forgotten a lot about tactical combat in the intervening ten days or the difficulty just jumped up to, like, thirty times the normal. Anyway, I have to admit that I still like the premise and the story (and the writing and line delivery… and I’m not just saying that because I’m biased, it really is good), but there will be grinding. Oh, yes, there will be grinding.
Finally, in a very strange bit of news that I’m sure most of you will likely not care about, I tried a new energy drink this morning: Full Throttle Bad Mother. Its green can and thorn-entwined logo imply a connection to nature; this indeed is true, as it tastes bad enough to make me commune it, and the rest of my stomach’s contents, with the soil almost immediately after drinking it. I did manage to choke it down, though, and thus it is merely vile instead of atrocious. Right, I know better now– don’t f%$# with Mother Nature.
Catch you folks tomorrow.
Ismail Saeed said,
08.30.07 at 8:01 am
Are you telling me that Final Fantasy VIII has a rarity that justifies $35 dollars?
Jiminy christmas, I’d never spend over 20 on that game, and that’s just the top of the edge… I’d look for like 15.
Still, I suppose it is partly to do with the fact that major retail isn’t carrying PS1 now… it used to at one time still do so. But 35, wow.
If you’re going to spend 35 on it, I’d replay it at the LEAST.
BIFF Phunbaba said,
08.30.07 at 9:34 am
I wouldn’t give 50 cents for FF VIII, but I would pay for FF VII- If I didn’t already own it in several formats.
I’ve had the same problem….The initial sequence (which made up the demo) is great, but after that the game just kind of drags for too long. That drag (use of a bad pun acknowledged) has kept me from playing it again in quite a while. The puzzles and things were OK the first time through, but now they just take too much time. The game doesn’t really get going until you get to the overworld.
JustSomeRandomGuy said,
08.30.07 at 11:39 am
He didn’t say he purchased FF 8 for $35, he says he bought FF 7 for $35.
Ismail Saeed said,
08.30.07 at 1:58 pm
I had a comment here that went byebye somehow.
John said,
08.30.07 at 6:34 pm
Please don’t jump on people over a typo. kthx
Anyway, when I said I wasn’t going to replay it, I meant in the immediate. The whole reason I own the game is because at some point I am going to want to replay it; but right now my backlog is ten games, all released within the last four years (the oldest being the 2003 Beyond Good and Evil). If I get the time to go old-school, 7 is probably at the tops of my list (unless I manage to snag the Lunar games again for reasonable prices).
And yes, I was not happy about it being $35, but it was much better than $90. And this is my own damn fault for not having foresight etc etc I’m beating myself up over stuff that’s mostly beyond my control. Just thought I’d share that I kind of made one of my personal goals for the year.