Remember when I said I wasn't particularly impressed with Mega Man ZX back in February? No? Just me? Well, the first game I finished in September was Mega Man ZX Advent, because it wasn't until that point that I decided I was ready to tackle another game from that series. I don't think I liked it too much more than ZX even if it did change up a few things. There were differences between the two, but it didn't leave enough of an impression on me for me to really articulate what they were. The characters still equipped power suits called Biometals for their powers and a lot of the same ones returned from ZX. Those two games just were not much of a successor to Mega Man Zero for me and later Azure Striker Gunvolt was a much improved foray into the same genre.
A game I really did like that I finished in September maybe about a week afterward was Final Fantasy X for the very first time. I'm a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series and even at that point I'd played and beaten literally every other main-series title not counting the MMOs. The fact that I ended with FFX is honestly pretty bonkers considering its stance and popularity, but I think it happened just due to a perfect storm of circumstances. I didn't have a PlayStation 2 when the game originally released, but I did have a chance to play through the opening sequences at a friend's house and recall enjoying it. By the time I did get a PS2, FFXII was already out and of course I decided to focus on that instead. Sometime after that I did end up purchasing both Final Fantasy X and X-2, playing the former briefly before again falling off and getting distracted by other things.
By the time I felt like I was ready to maybe tackle the game again, a remaster of the game had come out for PS3. I grabbed that and decided at that point that I was going to invest effort into actually playing through it. But of course this didn't pan out and I got distracted yet again. Eventually, the game became available on the PS4 as well with slightly improved graphics from the PS3 version, so I decided if I was going to continue, I would just play that version, but it was hard to justify purchasing a game I owned two different versions of already. Later on, my girlfriend insisted I play her copy of the PS4 version, so I finally decided to pull the trigger, something like 15 years after the game originally came out.
I'd played through the opening of the game so many times that it was actually really slow going at first and I felt frustrated at having to go through the motions of what was at this point a pretty boring sequence for me. The game didn't really click for me at all until I'd gotten a few hours in. It's not a game that resonates with me as much as some other games in the series but I do find that I enjoy it, particularly the fact that party members can be swapped out at will and each characters feels pretty distinct. I even really enjoy Blitzball a lot as a minigame. I'd put it up there with Final Fantasy minigames like FFVIII's Triple Triad and IX's Tetra Master. It's a game with a lot of problems but I'm glad I finally played through it!
I also played through a little point-and-click adventure game called Hiveswap: Act 1. I have mixed feelings about this game. My primary thought is that I finished this when it came out in September 2017 and it's now February 2019 as of this writing and Act 2 has not come out. Although the game is very well-written and made with care, featuring tons of descriptive text on pretty much everything you can interact with in the game, the game is three hours long at maximum. This is for a game that was originally launched on Kickstarter in 2012. As a fan of the series on which this game is based, it seems silly to expect to wait that period of time for a game that lasts three hours, no matter how good it is. And now that Act 2's status is indefinite, it's unclear whether or not future games will even be coming.
I played Final Fantasy X-2 back to back with its predecessor because of course they're bundled together in the remaster and despite what I'd always heard about the game, I wanted to give it a try for myself. My verdict is that the poor reputation it has is mostly justified. The plot and premise are insanely ridiculous and the game is probably one of the most unnecessary sequels I can think of. The job system in the game is interesting but never as satisfying as I wanted it to be. I didn't absolutely hate playing through the game because there were a few things about it that were somewhat enjoyable, but I'm still puzzled this game was ever made in the first place.
Finally, I rounded out the month by playing through both Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8 both for the second time in the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. To this day I haven't gotten back to that collection to pick up on Mega Man 9 and 10, which is a shame because I remember quite enjoying them the first time. Mega Man 7 is sort of a divisive game, I think because although the graphics are colorful and nice to look at, most of the sprites are oversized and it makes the game controls not quite as tight as the original NES titles. I still really like it a lot, but the difficulty level is a little extreme, even if I felt more capable of tackling it this time. Mega Man 8 is a really pretty game in a style that I'm glad they sort of revisited in Mega Man 11, but again, the controls are not as tight as they were in the past and when you combine that with some really questionable level designs, you end up with a game that doesn't rank up there with the classic entries.
Whew, that was another long one. Join me next time when I start playing through a bunch of episodic games and things got kind of confusing on my Backloggery!
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