Early Morning Ambulance (Day 174)

I'm getting into one of those moods again. My co-op partner and I are progressing through a second playthrough of Seiken Densetsu 3 with an all new party. We've even talked about a possible third playthrough sometime in the future, though we'll probably wait quite awhile before we attempt to do that. It's given me cravings for other action RPGs though, and not a lot of those early ones are co-op. I'm fine with playing single player games, of course--it's what I'm used to.

I recall playing Terranigma many years ago and liking it a lot. Unfortunately, I never finished it due to a save data fiasco, but I'd definitely be interested in picking it up again. I did a little research and found that it was developed by Quintet, who also helmed such titles as ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Illusion of Gaia. There are all games I've played very briefly in the past--but now I'm flirting with the idea of playing them for real. They also developed one of PlayStation's earliest polygonal RPGs, Granstream Saga. It's not exactly critically acclaimed, but I think it might be interesting to try for the historical perspective.

On the other hand, playing Tales of Destiny recently (despite the netplay headaches) has put the thought of playing through more Tales games in my mind. I finished the PlayStation version of Tales of Phantasia maybe a year ago and actually liked it quite a bit. I'd rank it up there with Tales of Symphonia as one of my favorites in the series--although I've only played a few. ToD doesn't seem quite as good, but it's certainly playable and the combat is as fun as ever, especially in co-op. If we could work something out where we played the game locally, I might actually have the motivation to finish it. If that happens, I'd then move on to Tales of Eternia. Beyond that I'm not sure, since Tales of Destiny II was never localized and I've already finished Symphonia and Abyss. I'd like to play Tales of Vesperia, but it's tough to find. I'm suddenly recalling that I own Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, which seemed sort of forgettable but might be worth playing co-op.

Aside from all that, I'm still progressing through Gungnir at a glacial pace. It's a great game, but it's actually pretty tough. I've had to restart missions several times--and considering how slow paced the game is, that means I spend a great deal of time not doing much of anything as far as progression goes. I'll be happy once some of my characters get strong enough to decimate my opponents because right now everyone feels relatively weak. I'm positive it will pick up, though. There's not a single Dept. Heaven game I've played that I haven't enjoyed. Gungnir reminds me most of Yggdra Union. The protagonist Milanor seems a lot like Giulio, both of which are bandits with wild blonde hair.