Out with a whimper

Day 397

Well, War of the Lions is finished, but now that I'm done with it I don't have a great deal to say about it. I feel pretty strongly that I ruined my reaction to the game by grinding excessively. My intent was to unlock as much content as possible and I was relatively successful on that front--but because the new content was relatively minor, it felt like quite extensively retreading old footsteps. I still think it's a great game and War of the Lions is undoubtedly the superior version, but I can't say I enjoyed myself a great deal after about halfway through the chapter 4. My lack of enjoyment is definitely my fault, but I wanted to unlock the Dark Knight class and that takes a lot of effort to do.

I think I would have had a lot more tolerance for that level of grinding if all of the enemies in the game continued to scale with me. This already happens for random encounters, but story missions feature enemies with preset levels. By the time I reached the final encounters, my characters were pushing level 60, probably 7-10 levels higher than the enemy's average. I was able to defeat the final boss before she could execute a single action. There was some level of satisfaction gained from being so ridiculously powerful, but I definitely think I overdid it. I wish there had been a way to unlock all of those abilities I had without also leveling up much higher than my foes. I know there are ways to delevel to get around these things, but it seems like a really unnecessary process to have to go through.

I'm glad that it's done now, but I definitely rushed it once I reached the end of the game. I was originally planning to conquer the Midlight's Deep optional dungeon with my super powerful characters but I found that I just didn't have it in me. I didn't even end up unlocking the rest of the Dark Knight's skills--because it was unnecessary and because I was quickly becoming bored with the game. I was not becoming bored with it because it's a bad game, but I was becoming bored with the way I was playing it. I think I'd have infinitely more fun if I had chosen to put some kind of restriction on myself during the game--Straight Character Class Challenges or even maybe a solo run. I wanted to experience all the content the new version of the game had to offer, though, and I guess I'm glad I did. If I ever play the game again, I'll have to do some kind of themed playthrough for it to keep my interest.

Next on the agenda is Persona 2: Innocent Sin. This will be the final PSP game on my backlog, after which I may tackle the PS2 since there are a quite of few games there left to complete, including no less than three Shin Megami Tensei titles. I started Innocent Sin shortly after completing the PSP version of the original Persona title but quickly stalled out due primarily to emulation issues. Those don't seem to be a problem anymore so I should hopefully have no issues completing it. I'd also like to eventually play Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, but that is a game that will have to wait until I've gone through everything else! I should start making a list of all the games I'd like to play to make my backlog even longer. . .