Playing Old Video Games

because they won't lag my computer

With work taking a solid 8 hours every day, plus other miscellaneous things (being in Ottawa the most significant one), I had great difficulties accomplishing anything meaningful. That's why my computer with a GBA emulator was a very good friend on my last co-op term. A few games were particularly memorable (unfortunately, not all because they were good), so here are some of my ramblings on them.

Fire Emblem: I actually quite like the underlying concept and mechanics, which makes this game worth playing. The presentation, though, was mediocre, and I think I'm being very kind with that comment. The storyline just didn't seem powerful enough to drive the game's progression. The gameplay was certainly much deeper than your run-of-the-mill RPG or ARPG, which was nice.

Golden Sun (I and II): Those two games made me feel that Nintendo doesn't really have a good eye for RPGs. The storyline made no sense at all. The balancing of the game was such that the beginning was piss easy, and to make the end bosses not complete pushovers, they were given incredibly cheap abilities that were just plain annoying. To defeat them, the player will more or less depend on them being stupid (e.g. casting a spell that heal ~70 hp/turn when the player is capable of dealing thousands). There is actually a lot of praise for this series around the internet, but if you want to try it, proceed with caution.

Castlevania: A classic that's still pumping out games in recent years. There's definitely a lot of originality and good ideas in this series, although some titles are clearly better than others. The player controls a human vampire slayer who ventures into Dracula's castle, and then proceeds to devastate all the monsters, demons, and lighting fixtures in sight with his holy whip. What's not to like about that?

Touhou Eiyashou: This is the eighth title in a series of STGs (ShooTing Games) made for the PC. The player controls the iconic shrine maiden, Reimu Hakurei (among other selectable characters), on a quest to foil an evil sorceress who replaced the moon in the sky with a fake one. This game is nothing short of epic. Even if you don't care much for this genre, the soundtrack alone makes this game worth checking out. It's simply incredible that everything was made by only one person.

The conclusion? Ottawa is a very boring place, so bring a book next time you have to go there.

Lich