You know, in the last couple of years I have been wondering about my relationship with RPGs and JRPGs. Growing up with the NES and SNES and Game Boy, I liked to believe and say that I was a fan of JRPGs and I still think that I am, or was...or am. I played the first Final Fantasy several times, falling in love with the fantasy setting, the music, being able to personify each of the four blank-slate characters as well as being able to decide the make-up of your party was amazing. We received a copy of the first Dragon Warrior as part of our Nintendo Power subscription and again, I played that game a lot as the nameless descendent of Erdrick. I knew about the sequels to Dragon Warrior, but I never played them on the NES, and all I can remember about Dragon Warrior II was Dr. Potts talking about the Prince of Midenhall; I did eventually play DWII when it was released on a dual-pack cartridge for the Game Boy Color. Now I could go through all of the JRPGs that I played over the years, but that would be cumbersome, boring, and I do not want to write that article/list; but prepare yourself anyway.
In the years of the N64 and Game Cube, there seemed to be fewer JRPGs that I was interested in although I did finish one (Hybrid Heaven), and started two (Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos). It probably also does not help that there were not very many (J)RPGs on either of those systems to begin with, so knowing that now validates the drought that I felt existed at the time. On the Game Boy systems (original, Color, Advance) I did play a few (J)RPGs (The Final Fantasy Adventure, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1 & 2, Final Fantasy V, Dragon Quest I, II, & III, etc), but most of those were ports of older games, and the same goes for most of the ones I played on the DS and 3DS. I did play a couple on the PSP, but I never ended up doing much with the Persona series.
The main reason I am here is to talk about two series, Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem. Final Fantasy I came to sometime around 1990 as I have talked about a few times and my first memory of the game is looking through the Player's Guide from Nintendo Power and hearing that Dr. Pott's Dad thought that the instruction manual gave too much of the game away (it functioned similarly to a player's guide for the first half of the game). Fire Emblem I only became aware of sometime in 2005 or 2006 when I got a Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones T-Shirt through one of Nintendo's programs (It might have been Club Nintendo or some other Nintendo sponsored loyalty program). I only first played a game in the series with the tactics-lite mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes, and then the first in the (actual) series was the remake of the 1992 Famicom Fire Emblem Gaiden with Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia on the 3DS, which I finished back in 2017.
Chronologically, over Christmas 2019 (back when Christmas's with members not of your household used to be a thing), ReallyBigAl let me sort through some of his older Game Boy Advance games and I picked out Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, now being a fan of the series. Then last month, I also pre-ordered the NA port of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light released on the Switch because trying to use Google's World Lens app to translate the original Japanese text did not go well a couple of times I tried to use it. Lastly, when Mjku bartered (of which I still need to fulfill my end of the deal because we need to find time to drive down and socially distancely visit with him and The Editor) for the New 3DS that I have been playing frequently, he also included a copy of Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. None of these games I have played but I am eagerly looking forward to three Fire Emblem games on various systems that are now part of my queue.
And over Christmas 2020 (when mixing more than three households and having more than six people from differing households in the same space was and still is frowned upon), Dr. Potts wonderfully gifted me a copy of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age on the Nintendo Switch. I last played FFXII on the PlayStation 2 after it was released (the only time I have pre-ordered a steel book edition) and I am looking forward to (hopefully) doing a better job of following the story because last time, 14 years ago, I was a little confused as to who everyone was and their connection with each faction and resistance group. And last week, because Best Buy was having a sale, I picked up Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster, being two of the later FF games that I have not played (as in after VII, I have only played IX and XII); I think I might have been JRPG islanded-out after playing Chrono Cross (and never finished either time I played) twice.
Looking at these two series with six JRPGs in front of me feels great. Kind of a combination of nostalgia for a genre that I have not played a lot of in recent years (with the exception of homages like Evoland and Cthulhu Saves Christmas) and have felt emotionally distanced from. Now, I have to constantly hold myself back from starting one of these before I finish at least one of the five of the other games I am currently playing across three systems (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Metro 2033: Redux, Mega Man 5, and Severed).
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Strange Canyon Road, Strange Look In Your Eyes
P.S. And I am going to be playing Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies that I have for the DS that I still haven't played yet at some point (maybe after Severed or FEF:C), and then also pick up Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age at some time too because that demo on the Switch was a blast. I do not know if I'll be able to go back to Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation after restarting twice and getting 20+ hours in each time.
No comments:
Post a Comment