RPG Bliss

I'm playing a lot of different games right now, but I don't find it stressful or overwhelming. In fact, I'm pretty happy with the situation because I'm really enjoying just about all of them--particularly because two of them I'm playing cooperatively with different people. There's something so satisfying about socializing while playing a game. It's such a wonderful hobby to share with others, particularly when it comes to story-driven RPGs. When both players are working toward a goal and planning and strategizing together--it's really rewarding. I'd previously lamented what I'd identified as "RPG burnout" but I think really what I was dealing with was several games in a row that were lengthy and insanely difficult. That's what happens when you play three Etrian Odyssey titles back to back. Fortunately, games like Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition and (on the complete opposite end of the RPG spectrum) Tales of Xillia have gone a long way toward allaying my frustrations with the genre.

Don't get me wrong--I loved the first three Etrian Odyssey games, but there's no denying that they're tremendously time consuming and unforgiving. I think I made a wise decision not to jump right into Etrian Odyssey IV despite having purchased it at the same time as EOIII. I'm healthily enthralled in the games I'm playing now in a way that I was afraid I wouldn't be. I felt I might have needed to cleanse my palate with a game of a completely different genre, whether it be action, adventure, or otherwise. Of course, I'm still open to those games and I may well move on to them after this batch of games is done. Crypt of the Necrodancer is a fiendishly addictive rhythm-based roguelike that I find I quite enjoy, for instance--and the recently fan-translated Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path scratches that adventure game itch. It could easily convince me to revisit such games as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Monkey Island 2.

For now, I'm enormously excited to be playing Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, as it more or less eradicates any issues I had with the original version of the game. It's important to have variety when creating a party of six characters, and IWD: EE delivers by importing all of the new and fleshed out classes and subclasses from Baldur's Gate II as well as what I can only assume are a few new ones added just for Beamdog's Enhanced Edition. The amount of diversity in classes is really refreshing. I'm having a lot of fun with it and I can't wait to move on to the enhanced editions of both Baldur's Gate games, having worshiped the original versions for many years. We have tentative plans to play them in three-man co-op, but we'll see how that works out. And then, maybe Neverwinter Nights on down the line? Icewind Dale II? Who knows?

I'm also playing Final Fantasy IV for Android because it's one of the few versions of the game I haven't yet played. I have tentative plans to follow up by playing Final Fantasy IV: The After Years despite some decidedly negative reviews. I think I'd like to give it a try and form my own opinion on it. If it's only useful as fanservice then I'm probably the right audience for it since FFIV was a pretty important part of my childhood and I never really tire of replaying the game.

Hopefully I'll have more fleshed out entries on individual games coming up soon, but considering my bizarre mood swings lately it's difficult to say just when they'll come!