JRPG Phase?

While technically not exactly a ``low-effort'' post, I'll write something over and beyond what I had written earlier as a reply to an entry on Flute Forum.

I played Breath of Death VII today, and completed it. It was alright, the mechanics were definitely rougher than Cthulhu Saves the World, but it was still a fun romp. Playing the latter (and later) game first and immediately following up with the earlier was a great way to see the similarities and differences. The key difference was the diversification of the skills on level-up---Cthulhu Saves the World has a more varied set up than Breath of Death VII. It is better in the objective sense, because it does raise the possibility of different types of specialisation. In many ways, the update of the game mechanics between the two is similar to that of FF5 to FF6---where in FF5, we have the four ``jack of all trade'' characters that can level up almost anything, while in FF6 each of the fourteen different characters have job specialisations.

I tried running Dark Souls: Ready to Die Edition, and well, it lived up to its namesake of dying---being unable to run. I cannot remember when I bought it, nor do I want to find ou, but one thing's for certain: I'm not going to buy the ``remastered'' version just to play it.

Oh well.

I also advanced [slowly] through Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition. It's not a bad game, it's just that... it really doesn't appeal to me that strongly that I feel compelled to complete it?

Yeah, I'm working through my back log of games, almost as a desperate plea as my sabbatical rapidly comes to an end. Only one and a half months left before I start my job hunting proper.

Exciting, and terrifying simultaneously.

What does the future bring?

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I've also checked out two emulators, Nintendulator and bsnes. The difference between these emulators from some of the older ones that I have used before is that these are aiming at 100% accurate emulation. I got a little interested in them after using DOSBox-X for a while.

You see, DOSBox-X tries to provide accurate emulation of the hardware that runs DOS to ensure that DOS programs (not just games: the games-only approach is strictly for DOSBox and is partly an ideological one (commercial products ought to have paid support on ancient systems)) can work on it well. And considering that the CPU that I have running can clock at a high enough clock speed to handle the overhead of all the simulation, it seems time to try out something that runs more like hardware.

Anyway that's about it for today, just doing things here and there, not reading.

I might want to crank out another 1k-word sub-story for my NaNoWriMo entry while having Ina's art stream running on the side screen.

Till the next update then.