What I'm Playing Now & Later

I talk a lot about my backlog, but not enough about the games I've played and loved (or didn't). I talk about them more frequently on Mastodon, but get very little, if any, feedback. So I figured: may as well save that energy for blog posts, as I end up writing blog length posts over there (5000 character count on my instance). I've written some killer posts, but they've all gotten auto-deleted.

So from here on out, they're all getting shared on my blog, where they won't get buried or lost in the sands of time. And, hopefully, a few fans come across them...

These are some recent posts (edited for flow):

My next game will be Tsukihime for sure. Daytime hours, at least. I try not to play VNs at night, as that's the ripe time for dozing. I'll be playing Strange Journey Redux and/or SMT V: Vengeance otherwise, and when I need to unwind with a good old fashioned dungeon crawler.

My first experience with SMT V was running all over the map for hours, before being abruptly thrust into the school life. Also around the time I got fed up and put it aside. It has a great steel case, at least. I'm really hoping Vengeance is as good as they say, as V felt like a letdown, especially compared to IV. IV was also my first real experience with the main series. I've technically played bits of the first two, but never got very far with them.

Out of curiosity, I looked up who directed and wrote SMT V, and found Komoi Shigeo. He also wrote scenarios for Nocturne (the third game in the series), but he's mostly written songs for the Persona games. Outside of that, he's more known for directing the Etrian Odyssey games. Which I do like, to an extent.

Meanwhile, Yoh Haduki wrote for several of my favorite games! Devil Survivor 1 & 2, and Strange Journey!! And then there's SMT V and Soul Hackers 2...that last one is really unfortunate, as despite being less of a pain in the ass, SH2 was...mediocre at best. More on that later.

Kazuyuki Yamai directed IV and was a scenario writer for Strange Journey. He's also worked extensively on other games in the series, and was a dungeon map planner and writer for Eternal Punishment.

And I gotta do a shout out to Katsura Hashino for the Persona spin-offs; P3R is my favorite. FES was my exposure to MegaTen as a whole.

But now I have a good idea why I love some games, but others fell flat for me. Like Soul Hackers 2, which I remember being super excited for, as I loved the first game.

Faults aside, the first SH had a lot going for it. The 90s setting, the ambitious tech, message boards, etc. I barely remember anything from SH2, other than I actually beat it. Got lost in the first game near the very end. I would need a guide for that door puzzle but that's just the tip of the iceberg. I actually tried a few months ago to pickup where I left off, but...I would need to reset the entire area or restart from an earlier save. And that just reminded me of the things I disliked about the combat system. I may watch a playthrough from one of my favorite streamers for that closure.

But let me end this on a positive note:

Another thing to love about the first Soul Hackers: all the unique COMPS. Other MegaTen games tend to have uniform devices: guns in P3, cards in P4, phones in DeSu via the demon summoning app, etc.

In SH1, you had characters summoning demons with umbrellas, guitars, and more. So much to love about this game...I hope it gets an update in the future, maybe even a full remake, to streamline some of its trickier concepts. I don't see that happening anytime soon, but you best believe I'll be one of the first to buy it! I did not hesitate with P3R. Almost done with my second playthrough right now, which sparked this post.