PixlBit

Here's my schedule: Teach a four hour class at 8 a.m., give an office hour until 1.  Drive home, attempt to go for a run (marathon training) and take a nap.  Rush back to the school and teach a four hour class from 6-10.  Every Monday through Thursday.  Add that to the move, and it's been a hectic few weeks.  So the laziness in these posts is a reflection of the stress I'm feeling away from here.  And instead of actually writing anything of substance, here are some more pictures of games!

So, my girlfriend and I have just about finished moving.  93% of my games are here.  The Genesis and Sega Master System games are still in the old place, as are one crate of shitty NES games.  And my DS cases are there, but everything else has been successfully transported.  So that means more pictures for you, including the rest of my Sega CD and Saturn games; good thing too because I had feared them lost.  I'll start with those.

I've spent the week moving into a new apartment.  Because the new place is only two and a half blocks from our current apartment, my girlfriend and I have decided to save a little bit of money by only paying movers to transport the furniture and other large items.  That means that my girlfriend and I have been walking all of our small and loose stuff over ourselves.  Allow me to translate- I've been making trip after trip to the new apartment while my girlfriend paces around the apartment, stressed that we aren't going to get everything done before the closing date.  Here's a picture of my girlfriend in happier times, like anyone gives a shit:

I’m aware that writing a countdown is a cheap and easy way to generate page hits and drum up popularity for your blog.  You don’t have to go through the effort of crafting a narrative, and errors in grammar or diction are less noticeable when digested in bite-sized snippets of opinions and description.  That having been said, let’s do more of the countdown!  This time I will be writing about the sad sacks from 110-101, those guys that couldn’t quite crack the seemingly important yet completely arbitrary TOP 100!  Haha, losers.  No, I'm kidding; don't feel bad for them.  They often possess many positive qualities, and are certainly sentimental favorites for many.  Without further ado…..

I like to write a review in two parts.  The first part is written when the game in question is perceived to be half-way done.  I’ll write my impressions, see what I thought about it to contrast with my ultimate opinion once the game is finished.  I’ll even project where on my top 250 RPG countdown (assuming it’s an RPG) the game will end up.  This lends to mixed degrees of success in prognostication, as you might imagine.  For example, if I were to project Tales of Graces f’s end position based on my impression after thirty hours, I would have placed it somewhere in the high (high meaning low numerically, as is the case with countdowns) 100s, maybe at 105 or 112 or something.  As it turns out, the game really picked up later on, and ended up at 68 when all was said and done.  Ni No Kuni had the opposite problem.  After the first couple of dozen hours, I had this one pegged for a top forty spot, no problem.  Well some late issues with the combat and repetitive fetch questing landed it at number 51; nothing to be ashamed of, but just outside the pantheon of my favorite RPGs of all time.

As you now know, I’ve created a list of the top 230 console role-playing games of all time.  This is a list based on science.  It is completely objective, so sorry if you disagree with some of the choices here.  I know if you think long and hard about it, you’ll agree with every single game on this list, and their placements.  These are the 220-211^th best RPGs of all time.  Another name for them could be “some of the worst fucking RPGs ever created”.  Here’s a fun game: try and figure out the only ten games I have ranked lower than these stinkers.

I’ve played more RPGs than you.  That isn’t an insult; you may consider it a compliment if you wish.  I’m not necessarily proud of the fact, honestly.  If I could get a girl to talk to me, I wouldn’t tell them I’ve played so many role-playing games.  Maybe I would.  Is that the kind of thing they like talking about?  Anyway, because I’ve played more RPGs than you, I’m in a unique position to tell you which ones are the best, and which ones are 161^st best.  Hint: there are six games that are the 161^st best.  But honestly, I like to write about RPGs, so here is a list if you like that sort of thing.

You’ve been duped!  You were expecting a review of the NES game, weren’t you?  This isn’t that.  No, wait, please don’t leave.  You know the Nintendo version of Bionic Commando is a classic, but you don’t know anything about the Gameboy version, do you?  This is a sad state of affairs for a purported expert of classic games, like yourself.  Well, this is a review for that version of the game, and hopefully you will learn something from this review.  But you probably won’t.

If I’m really going to embrace my earlier talking point- “It’s more fun to mention the things a game does wrong than the things it does right”, then Ni No Kuni gives me a bunch of things to mention.  These are things that you have read about if you had any interest in the Level-5 RPG released exclusively for the PS3.  The battle system for one, horrendous.  The story, shallow.  The Pokemon-esque collectathon, pointless.  The setting, somewhat evocative, but cloying.  Maybe I made that last one up.  Maybe I have no child-like wonder left.  The game is for babies, after all, right?  Wasn’t that the main criticism?

Really quick warning:  This post is LONG.  It's a review of a recently-translated SNES strategy RPG in the famous Fire Emblem series, but sorta morphs into something more.  I was going to throw in some pictures, but the entire thing is taking up too much space as is.  So apologies ahead of time for the lack of visual stimulation.