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Jun. 24th, 2020 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedI feel like I'm going through a repeat of what happened five years ago, involving such an unsuccessful break as I had from Lucky Star.
To begin with, I actually did need to unwind even after having Brian proofread THIS IS IT! I was already set to begin playing Trails in the Sky for real, but needless to say, what happened with that game only left me feeling frustrated over having had to abort a playthrough for far from the first time already, and still not in the mood to come back to Starbound.
So, I finally look at Mother's Cookbook, but my time with that lasts barely a week, although I do manage to look through the whole book at least.
In order to refresh myself to work on food icons again, what I want right now is to play at least a sizeable way through something that contains food from all different food groups. I already specified the deal with Persona 2, which is also mostly a matter of eating said food only at restaurants. I want a change in pace from Trails in the Sky, as well as from Disgaea and The World Ends With You, the former of which has food from mostly three groups. I am also not too interested in exploring yet another all new game, when there are other games I've been dying to return to, so that rules out Recettear, Fortune Summoners, and The 7th Stand User.
And so, I decided upon Star Ocean: First Departure R.
But of course, in order to cook anything, you need to purchase Sense 1, which is sold only in Haute and the very late Safe House. Now, I know the obvious answer would be just to buy the damn book deliberately, but for me, that just kills my other whole point of playing RPGs, which is to randomize everything that happens.
And doing that, I wound up hardly buying anything across five different visits between Kraat, Haute, and Portmith. Obviously, I had only myself to blame when I kept getting my ass handed to me in Pirate's Hideout, and found myself not invested enough to try anymore.
From there, I decided to start over and, this time, invest in all Skill Books as they become available, since those are permanent while items get consumed and equipment gets cycled through. In practice, that only ate my money right up.
And, I figured out that, no matter how I look at it, this particular game would not be conducive to a randomization walkthrough. And I was actually planning to do three different playthroughs when I'd get around to that, in order to account for all its playable characters, of whom you can only have eight at a time, four of whom are mandatory.
First of all, the in-game skill list itself is poorly designed even in its own right, what with whatever skills you obtain being just strewn about down two columns. That would require anyone interested to count manually how many skills they have available, unless I were to make multiple lists to account for all possible book combinations.
Next, to say nothing of cooking ingredients being pointless until maybe the end of the game if you don't buy Sense 1, there are other things you can obtain but would have little actual use for until you obtain the last book required, which is a big if if you're playing randomly. Most damningly, you can buy a Harmonica as early as Haute, but won't have any use for it if you never buy Knowledge 2 for Music Knowledge at any point between Autanim and Eckdart, the latter of which is also the first time you can buy Technical 3 for Performance and also the only place besides the Safe House to buy half the game's other musical instruments, which makes buying said instruments a crapshoot in case no one ever learns Music, or not buying them such if anyone does later.
Also makes no "sense" why Sense 1 is sold in only one town, while most other books are sold in multiple locations. But at the same time, buying all of them upfront not only drains your money away, leaving you with little for items or equipment, but also raises questions as to why most are sold again. Especially the level 1 books at the Safe House.
So now, this game is reserved once more for either burnout, familiarity, or a trip somewhere, and maybe not even then. If I do play it again, I might actually scrap the index card I planned things on and saved since Christmas, and create new plans altogether that I would have only created for each playthrough pertaining to the walkthrough. (Subsequent installments are still viable, though, given how differently I gather each game works.)
And, being out of immediate options as I am, I am actually considering buying a reproduction copy of this unofficial guide for Suikoden and a USB adapter for PSX controllers, and look over a new revision of the Starbound outline while awaiting those. Even though that first game in its series does not feature food at all, its data is required for certain things in the next, including a particular recipe, and I've already been dying to play that again as well since aborting those few months ago. After that, I should feel refreshed enough to come back to Trails in the Sky next break I take.
To begin with, I actually did need to unwind even after having Brian proofread THIS IS IT! I was already set to begin playing Trails in the Sky for real, but needless to say, what happened with that game only left me feeling frustrated over having had to abort a playthrough for far from the first time already, and still not in the mood to come back to Starbound.
So, I finally look at Mother's Cookbook, but my time with that lasts barely a week, although I do manage to look through the whole book at least.
In order to refresh myself to work on food icons again, what I want right now is to play at least a sizeable way through something that contains food from all different food groups. I already specified the deal with Persona 2, which is also mostly a matter of eating said food only at restaurants. I want a change in pace from Trails in the Sky, as well as from Disgaea and The World Ends With You, the former of which has food from mostly three groups. I am also not too interested in exploring yet another all new game, when there are other games I've been dying to return to, so that rules out Recettear, Fortune Summoners, and The 7th Stand User.
And so, I decided upon Star Ocean: First Departure R.
But of course, in order to cook anything, you need to purchase Sense 1, which is sold only in Haute and the very late Safe House. Now, I know the obvious answer would be just to buy the damn book deliberately, but for me, that just kills my other whole point of playing RPGs, which is to randomize everything that happens.
And doing that, I wound up hardly buying anything across five different visits between Kraat, Haute, and Portmith. Obviously, I had only myself to blame when I kept getting my ass handed to me in Pirate's Hideout, and found myself not invested enough to try anymore.
From there, I decided to start over and, this time, invest in all Skill Books as they become available, since those are permanent while items get consumed and equipment gets cycled through. In practice, that only ate my money right up.
And, I figured out that, no matter how I look at it, this particular game would not be conducive to a randomization walkthrough. And I was actually planning to do three different playthroughs when I'd get around to that, in order to account for all its playable characters, of whom you can only have eight at a time, four of whom are mandatory.
First of all, the in-game skill list itself is poorly designed even in its own right, what with whatever skills you obtain being just strewn about down two columns. That would require anyone interested to count manually how many skills they have available, unless I were to make multiple lists to account for all possible book combinations.
Next, to say nothing of cooking ingredients being pointless until maybe the end of the game if you don't buy Sense 1, there are other things you can obtain but would have little actual use for until you obtain the last book required, which is a big if if you're playing randomly. Most damningly, you can buy a Harmonica as early as Haute, but won't have any use for it if you never buy Knowledge 2 for Music Knowledge at any point between Autanim and Eckdart, the latter of which is also the first time you can buy Technical 3 for Performance and also the only place besides the Safe House to buy half the game's other musical instruments, which makes buying said instruments a crapshoot in case no one ever learns Music, or not buying them such if anyone does later.
Also makes no "sense" why Sense 1 is sold in only one town, while most other books are sold in multiple locations. But at the same time, buying all of them upfront not only drains your money away, leaving you with little for items or equipment, but also raises questions as to why most are sold again. Especially the level 1 books at the Safe House.
So now, this game is reserved once more for either burnout, familiarity, or a trip somewhere, and maybe not even then. If I do play it again, I might actually scrap the index card I planned things on and saved since Christmas, and create new plans altogether that I would have only created for each playthrough pertaining to the walkthrough. (Subsequent installments are still viable, though, given how differently I gather each game works.)
And, being out of immediate options as I am, I am actually considering buying a reproduction copy of this unofficial guide for Suikoden and a USB adapter for PSX controllers, and look over a new revision of the Starbound outline while awaiting those. Even though that first game in its series does not feature food at all, its data is required for certain things in the next, including a particular recipe, and I've already been dying to play that again as well since aborting those few months ago. After that, I should feel refreshed enough to come back to Trails in the Sky next break I take.