Blue Prince was sold to me as Myst meets a rouge-lite. Who exactly sold it to me that way, I can’t recall. I just started seeing a bunch of media talking about it, and shortly after that started watching some Youtubers play it before I decided I needed to experience it for myself.

That all said, I’m not really huge into Myst. I’ve never beaten it. In fact I’ve never even got very far into it. Partly due to it coming out when I was too young to understand how to figure out the puzzles, but also because I was scared away from playing it (Long story short, don’t play atmospheric games with your friend at a sleepover at 2 am)

On paper though I’ve always liked the idea of Myst and having an interest in plenty of rogue-lite games, it definitely sounded like something I needed to check out.

I will admit that I didn’t solve many (if any at all) puzzles. A big part of that was watching Northernlion play a good chunk of the game, although once he stopped his playthrough (to move onto other games) I wound up using internet help. Most of my enjoyment came from the rogue-lite parts.

I know there’s probably some people who would frown at that, but I still enjoyed the game. I think it’s a masterpiece. Well at least up until you reached room 46. The stuff you can do after that starts to plummet in enjoyability to a more “normal game” level. Not bad, but it gets to the point where I started to feel like what I was doing was not working towards a resolution of the main mystery that becomes clear to you over the course of playing.

It didn’t stop me from doing all there was to do, and it wont probably stop me from picking it up again if new content was introduced. Though for most others I would recommend just focusing on the getting to room 46 and calling it there

Going forward I plan to make individual posts for pieces of media I finish (whether that be entirely or if I drop it) However there’s a lot of things I’ve played in the past several months that I’d like to also say something about, which is why I decided to make a media round-up post for those.

Games:

Final Fantasy XI (Dropped)

I went back to playing Final Fantasy XI toward the end of last year and in the beginning of this year. My reasons for doing so was feeling nostalgic and I was seeing a community for it start up on Blusky. I thought it would be great to play it again, but with people this time (unlike the previous couple times I’ve revisited and pretty much played entirely by myself)

The fact I didn’t quit after a month like I usually do should be telling. It was quite an enjoyable experience. I even met a few people I really enjoyed talking/being with. The problem was, as it always was with FFXI, is that eventually the stuff to do in the game turns into endless grinding for a fraction more power. You can delay it by working on other things, but eventually you reach this point where the only things left to do is put in these hours to the same activities.

I don’t know if I’m doing justice to explaining it. I know there’s probably someone out there who might say “Isn’t that how it always is with ongoing games?” or “Isn’t that how it’s always been with FFXI” It’s hard to explain. Other than to say my excitement just wore off, and while I’d love to stick around for the people I met (and even tried to for a bit) I realized it was keeping me from doing other stuff.

First Berserker Khazan (Complete/cheated)

After FFXI, I picked up First Berserker Khazan. It was the new souls-like that was getting critical claim from people. Being someone that generally enjoys souls games (apart from the recent Elden Ring DLC), I decided to give it a shot. It having an anime aesthetic also didn’t hurt.

I quickly (game progress wise not actual time spent) gave up on the game when I reached the stag boss, I forget their name. After spending close to a couple days on the boss before and then spending several hours with the stag boss, I just felt tired of it. I went down to normal and eventually just used cheat engine to push me through the rest of the game.

There’s a few different things I didn’t like. My biggest criticisms boil down to not enough enemy or location variety, randomized gear, and your efforts generally not contributing much (ie: If you allot a bunch of levels to one stat, it’s probably not going to do much in helping you kill a boss quicker) The story was also pretty weak despite having an interesting premise.

Suikoden (Complete)

Replayed through this as part of the remastered edition release. Despite being a huge Suikoden series fan, I actually hadn’t played the first game more than maybe 2 times (Unlike 2 and 5) It was interesting to see where the series began again.

My general thoughts about the original is that compared to the titles that followed it, it’s the weakest. I would say on the same level as IV (which is practically the most disliked) There’s too many areas where the story and characters could use a bit more fleshing out, and systems that I was disappointed the remaster didn’t try to improve (Despite II already having improved them)

It kind of made me soften on my opinion of Eiyuuden Chronicles. Originally, I didn’t like the game much, and while I would still say I think it misses a lot more than it hits, it feels a bit reminiscent of what the original Suikoden was. Essentially something that needed more time in the oven.

I guess you could argue rather than softening my opinion of Eiyuuden it probably should have made me dislike the original Suikoden more. That would seem more logical. The problem is, I love Suikoden so much that it’s hard to make that judgment

Shows:

Squid Game Season 2 (Complete)

I loved Squid Game season 1 (like most people it seems) Although, I have to admit I was quite sick of it about a month or two later after everyone started doing Squid Game related stuff (There was some multiplayer game made as well as that stuff that went on with Mr. Beast) I knew a season 2 was planned, but after a while I just started tuning out anything that mentioned Squid Game

Imagine my surprise when I find out that season 2 dropped. At first, I wondered if I remembered enough about the original to be able to enjoy a continuation, but time being something I was in short supply of then (I was balls deep in FFXI again) I chose to forgo that and jump right back into it.

Thankfully it didn’t take me long to get back up to speed again. Not that the show really did anything to facilitate that specifically, but from the plot threads of the show I could connect it back to some vague memories and get the general idea.

The show was good. Really good. However, I felt that they did it a disservice ending it on the cliffhanger they did. If this had been a movie, I might have been more willing to let it slide, but for a TV show follow up people had been waiting several years for, I felt like they could have held it off for this year and made season 2 one complete season instead of being in two parts.

I get why they did it that way (money I’m guessing) but to me it just makes the entire thing not feel as strong as it could be. Instead of remembering it as a show with two really strong seasons, I’ll always remember that break now.

86 (Dropped)

I picked this up as an anime to watch while doing my workout (exercise bike) It’s not what I would call a bad anime, by any metric, but I just couldn’t vibe with it after 6 episodes. Also learning that it wasn’t a complete adaptation probably killed whatever interest I still had in it.