So, Shiren kicked my butt to Table Mountain and back again. It’s good, but setbacks can be maddening. After a satisfying run in which I made it within spitting distance of the quest’s finale, I decided that maybe it would be nice to leaven the experience with something less abusive and switched over to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. It’s a roguelike for babies! No, seriously — the lack of level resets makes it stupidly easy. And I realized I can only meander through the same challenge-free random tileset so many times before I lose my mind. Team Asskickers and I saved pokey mans for about five hours before I lost interest and decided to switch over to something with a little more… tooth. And sapphic fanservice. Which could only mean one thing: Izuna.
And I got an hour into that before deciding that maybe I’ve had enough of the genre for the time being. On the plus side, I can safely say I get the roguelike now — unlike when I wrote the Essential 50 Rogue retrospective, which was a well-researched tribute to something I didn’t really understand, I grasp not only the appeal of these games (which I’ve liked since I first discovered them) but also what makes them good and what makes them… not good. So I guess that’s a small, useless victory. Go me.
Also, as of today “expanded content” apparently includes movie reviews. I’m not really certain that this works as a news story, but at least it’s something new.
Since I know you read the @play columns this recommendation is redundant but whenever enough time has passed that your roguelike burned-outed-ness is gone I strongly recommend giving NetHack a try, its the apotheosis of roguelikes (lovin’ me some Shiren DS though, its damn good).
Rogue burnout is not an uncommon occurrence, and will usually happen to me after some unforseen “tragedy” concludes an unusually long run and the subsequent retries no longer reflect how helpless I am at the beginning of the game, but instead the relative ass-whuppin’ machine I was when my long-running hacker dies. After about 10-20 attempts to recapture that stride, I usually quit for half a year or so before it being rekindled.
Perhaps you are a different breed?
Ooh, is this that Poke-mans game with the personality test? What did our leader get?
weren’t you going to japan, jeremy?
Those are ALL rougelikes for babies! Real MEN play ones where when you die you lose EVERYTHING and have to start all over.
And then cheat at them, because good god I do not have the time to spend developing the skills I need to remember exactly what one incredibly obscure monster does and how to deal with it.
Will you be doing another Rogue retrospective?
That pic of the overworld REALLY looks like Lunar around Meribia for some reason.
I’d rather play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon than Izuna or Shiren. Starting over and losing everything is for the birds.
What makes PMD so stupidly easy isn’t just that you don’t lose levels; it’s also that you don’t lose your stuff when you die, and it’s also the fact that the fact that you don’t lose your stuff when you die doesn’t really matter because there’s no real equipment to build up and money’s kinda worthless.
However–and I’m sort of embarrassed to be saying this–the game does have a not-awful story–certainly way better than you’d expect in a Pokemon game.
Didn’t the GIA end shortly after doing a movie review?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. I think that review brought down Square itself, so be vigilant.