Wow, I honestly never thought I'd make it to 200 days on this blog. When I started out things were shaky and I thought maybe I'd keep it up for a week--and maybe fitfully update from that point on when I became guilty I wasn't updated. But no, I've updated every single day for 200 days. Even if I haven't achieved anything else of note in that period of time, that's pretty impressive! I'll admit--some of those entries were a bit phoned in, but for the most part I've done very well. I've written a ton of fiction, a lot of opinion pieces on video games, and lots of different anecdotes from my life. For someone who just sits around and play games all day, it's impressive I've managed to think of something to write about every day. I'm continually surprised at that.
I've been progressing as steadily as I possibly can in Final Fantasy; I'm beginning to experience a great deal of frustration with the game's pacing. Items are incredibly expensive and spells are in short supply. I'm forced to purchase countless potions and antidotes just to get by because just about every enemy has a chance to poison you--which is a permanent condition. If you're poisoned deep in a dungeon it's a miserable experience. You get lost and get thrust into encounter after encounter while desperately trying to find the exit. Then once you make it outside you use a Tent to restore your party's health and save the game. . .but that doesn't remove the poison status.
I guess it's sort of unfair for me to deride the game for these old school mechanics because I went into it knowing exactly what was ahead of me. There are multiple versions of these games that offer a less frustrating experience--but I've embarked on this journey as sort of a personal challenge. I want to be able to say that I've beaten this games they were meant to be experienced originally. It's funny to think about what gamers at the time were expected to put up with, though.
As soon as I arrived in Melmond, I saw that the new spells cost 8000 gil and thought that was ridiculous. I had enough trouble farming up 4000 gil apiece for the spells in the previous town--and then I noticed that the newest armor for my warriors sported a price tag of 45000 gil. I had to buy two of these for the two warriors in my party but it took me hours of grinding to save up for them. Then, I delved into the depths of the Terra Cave where Lich waited for me--and I died within three turns. I might have had better luck had I not used most of my spells just getting there.
I've had to deal with arguably even tougher trials in classic video games before, though. I played Faria early last year, an NES game that flew under most people's radar--for good reason. it was a weird hybrid of Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy mechanics with little of the charm of either. Even though I'll admit that Final Fantasy's dungeons are frustrating, most of the frustration there is due to random encounters. In the case of Faria, the dungeons are impossible to navigate without a map--something the game does not provide. If I hadn't consulted a map on GameFAQs, I would have been lost for literally days in any of the game's dungeons. Compared to that game, Final Fantasy is just fine. I think I'll still probably start consulting maps.
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