A Green Mushroom

I'm already done with FFIV.  I didn't do any mid-way posts because the game held my attention so well.  It only took me a couple weeks of lunch breaks and commuting time to finish.  Let me tell you, Final Fantasy IV is a fantastic entry in the series!  More than anything else, the story made all the difference. There was so much character development and interaction, especially compared to the first three entries.  Now that I've finished this game I've come to realize how much I was missing a solid story in the older games.  A memorable story with interesting characters has become a hallmark of a Final Fantasy game and this is the first place that it's evident. This game actually has a bunch of firsts for Final Fantasy.  First use of the Active Time Battle system.  First time class is tied to characters and their personality.  First decent story.  First time having lots of temporary characters to fill out the roster.  Fi...

Kain is here to ease my suffering from FFIII.  Thanks Kain. I was planning on writing my initial impressions sooner, but FFIV pulled me in right away and hasn't let go.  I'm already about 8 hours into the game so I figure it's about time to put some thoughts down. When I put on my headphones and first launched FFIV the music overwhelmed me.  It was so much better than the last three games I played.  I literally just sat there and listened to the title music for at least 5 minutes.  I don't know if the music has been remastered or if Square just hit their stride with this one, but the music is top notch.  This is where the work of Nobuo Uematsu truly starts to shine.  So many of his compositions and arrangements are in my mind forever and I know FFIV will add a few tracks of it's own. It's also immediately obvious that the story in FFIV is meant to drive the game.  I'm invested in the saga of Cecil and his companions in a way that I...

Victorious (Ignus usually looks like that after a boss battle) I wanted to finish Final Fantasy III before the end of the year and I got it in just under the wire.  My drive to power through the rest of the game and wrap it up was because I was stuck for such a long time.  The last 20% of this game took me months and months simply because I didn't want to spend time grinding levels. I would not recommend Final Fantasy III to other people.  It's the most grindy Final Fantasy game that I've played so far, and I've played most of them at one point or another.  FFIII was most definitely a slog, especially toward the end.  I'm not a fan of games that have mandatory level grinding to finish the game and unfortunately this falls into that category. It wasn't a horrible game by any means, it just wasn't nearly as good as the other entries in the Final Fantasy series that I've played.  It had a more fleshed out story and better characters than FFI and F...

I've been playing a lot of games for my 3DS.  Right now I'm playing through Fire Emblem: Awakening and enjoying it a ton. The older I get the more I move away from real time strategy games and start to appreciate the turn-based format.  It's not that my reflexes are bad, I'm only 26, but I just don't have time to devote to getting really good at execution in games.  I'm usually playing less than an hour each night and I'm lucky if that is one uninterrupted block of time. For me, right now, Fire Emblem: Awakening is perfect.  It's a turn based strategy with interesting mechanics that I can suspend at any time.  I constantly have it near me since my 3DS is almost always close by.  It's great to be able to take a turn and then put it down to come back to later.  Even if I know I only have 5 minutes I still get to make some progress and stretch my mind with some strategy. It's more character driven than most turn-based RPGs I've playe...

I've mostly been gaming during my lunch hour or once my kids are in bed at night.  When I finally get a few free minutes to play a game I almost always turn to my 3DS.  It travels everywhere with me just in case I get an opportunity to bust it out for 5 minutes and play. It's really an awesome system.  The 3D effect is cool, but not required.  It has a great lineup of games that's constantly growing.  It has support for digital purchases.  It's finally a Nintendo console with decent online play.  It's easy to carry around.  But most importantly, it's fun! I've had a blast with Mario Kart 7, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Donkey Kong Country Returns, New Super Mario Bros 2, and Super Mario 3D Land, Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Not to mention all the fantastic eShop and Virtual Console games I've been playing.  Nintendo has a lot to offer. They're even catering to our nostalgic impulses.  I had a few weeks wher...

There's a wave of hype building for Blizzard's new digital CCG, Hearthstone .  It's winning me over.  It's strange since I'm not normally a CCG guy, but I think this one could be for me. I've dabbled in various card games over the years.  I've used other people's decks and played a little bit of Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon card game .  I got seriously into the Game of Thrones Living Card game for about a year.  It helped that one of my friends owned every single card from that game.  I also picked up a starter kit for the Netrunner Living Card Game and loved the ideas in it, I just didn't have anyone to play it with consistently. So that's where I'm coming from.  A little of bit CCG and LCG knowledge paired with one year of fairly intense play (and a tournament) for the Game of Thrones LCG. Why does Hearthstone appeal to me so much?  Well, it's the first digital card game created by a proven AAA video game design comp...

It's been a busy year.  I haven't written on here in about nine months, and I feel pretty bad about that.  Sometimes you just have to drop things to free up time for others.  In my case, I have 2 little kids, I moved my family, and I've been teaching myself the programing languages in a typical web stack (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL).  My time is essentially accounted for with all of this on top of my full-time job. I'm finally starting to feel the stress and the crazyness let up, so I'm hoping to write more.  If all goes well, you should see more posts here soon. The last nine months have been busy but I have found time to play games.  I just haven't had time to write about them. Steam and Nintendo have been my companions when I can find free time, all of my gaming has been taking place on PC and my 3DS.  My (fifth) Xbox 360 died a few months ago and I didn't feel like replacing it again.  I can basically play everything I want to pla...