Flying by the seat of my pants in Gungnir

Day 380

As I draw closer to the end of Gungnir, I'm struck with the realization that I've enjoyed it more and more as the game has gone into its later stages. I think this has a lot to do with investing more effort into understanding the game's mechanics and focusing more on strategy instead of mindlessly zerging the enemy. I've been in the mindset over the past year or so to rush through games as quickly as possible. Even though my goal is to write about a lot of these games in detail, I'm still ultimately cognizant of my desire to finish 30 games this year. It's a silly goal that doesn't really mean much of anything, but I know I'd be pretty satisfied with myself if I manged it. I still have plenty of time to do this. Depending on the games I play, I could easily go even higher than that.

I would most certainly enjoy Gungnir more on a replay. If I understood what was happening from the very beginning of the game, I'd waste a lot less money on experimentation and I would buy only the things I absolutely needed. Any time I lost an item, I'd restart a mission. It'd save me a lot of trouble in the long run. This is the kind of meticulous playstyle that I'd normally reserve for a Fire Emblem game. Killing off characters in that game is problematic not because you lose valuable items, but because you lose the character in question forever. However, Gungnir does feature many valuable items that can be lost. I'm still salty about losing that excellent accessory for Paulo.

Beyond that, I better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various classes and how best they can be used. I understand how Tactics Points work and how the Beat system works and what its restrictions are. Is it a fault of the game that these mechanics are not adequately explained? I'm not sure. I haven't seen the instruction manual--and to be honest, I did not do the research I should have. I have this habit of going into games blind so that I can give more of an unbiased opinion of them and for the most part I like this policy. Sometimes it does impede my enjoyment of these games, unfortunately.

In the case of Divinity: Original Sin, I did a lot of research before purchasing. As a result, I think I enjoyed it and understood it a lot more than I otherwise would have. The only reason this research was done was because my co-op partner and I always plan things before we start a game. That's just how his personality is and I typically go along with it. If left to my own devices, I'll dive in and figure things out as I go. In many cases, this works out just fine, but for Gungnir it was not a great choice.

For the next game I play, I'm going to plan out how I play the game. I'll probably discuss it here and I'll compare how differently I approach the game. I'm still flirting with the idea of playing Gungnir again, but in all honesty I'd like to just move on. The prospect of finally playing the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics is extremely appealing to me. It's been some time since I've played it--and I've never even finished that particular version. I'll definitely plan out some things about my party composition beforehand.