Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES - 1/23

Time: 5:23pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster

So... an hour and a half later and I've progressed one day. But I think I've got all the fighting and fusing out of my System for now so hopefully this week should go quickly.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES - 1/22

Time: Saturday 3:40pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom, Persona 3
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster

Ah, the Velvet Room music. I have heard this so many times, I'm surprised it hasn't driven me crazy. At least the Persona battle music stops and starts in between wandering around Tartarus. But the Velvet Room music just keeps going as I spend forever trying to figure out who to fuse with whom and to get just the right skills. I know my former roommates can still hum it from memory.

Anyway, my big push here is to get this game finished. January 31st is the final day (I think) and so I only have a little over a week in game time. I've already made it as far as I can go in Tartarus and have even opened up the doorway to the other realm by defeating death. So I don't really need to defeat any more monsters.

Of course, that's the first thing I did when I started up the game again just to re-familiarize myself with the game. And now I'll probably spend half an hour in the Velvet Room fusing more personae. But after that... all macking on girls until the end of the game!

Fathom - Finished the Game

Time: Saturday 1:45pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa, Fathom
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Endurance, 1 Odwalla B Monster

Each weekend, the folks at Talking Time pick a free game out there and play and discuss it. This week was Fathom - an indy game with an art vibe (meaning that it is trying to convey some sort of message).

I got to a certain point in this game and then couldn't figure out what the hell to do. I had collected a ton of fish and done several other things but it just seemed that I couldn't continue at all. I asked for help, didn't get any, and was getting incredibly frustrated. I was about to give up, but then tried the game in a different browser. Turns out I must have hit upon a bug, because playing it in that browser everything happened as I expected and I was able to finish the game.



Despite my frustrations, I enjoyed it overall. The music is great, the aesthetics are nice and I really like how it subverts the tropes of video games. The game is mostly divided into two parts and the first part is well done, if not particularly creative. The second part is much more creative and sets a good mood even if playing it gets a little frustrating after awhile.

There's a larger discussion to be had here about whether games can really have a message. Can they express something through pure gameplay? Are they beholden having to be "fun to play" or can they use limitations on play control to express things? I think you can have "art games" much like "art films", though it's much harder to pull off a pure message game than say, a movie or book or painting.

But whatever. On to another game!

Quordy - Waking up the brain

Time: 11:27am
Games played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint

Amazing my dog let me sleep in until 11am today. I guess I must have kept him up late with all my cursing at the final levels of Klonoa. It's a bit later than I wanted, but I awake refreshed and ready to take on a new day.

It's still pretty nice (though hot) today, so I took him to the park in the morning and while he was running around, I woke up my brain with a nice game of Quordy. It's a good way to get myself going in the morning. Now I just need to grab a "breakfast" sandwich and then I'll be ready to go.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - Finished the game

Time: Saturday 3:56am
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull, 1 Guayakí Yerba Mate Pure Empower Mint


Man, Klonoa is supposed to be a dream or all a dream world or whatever, but some of that stuff will give me nightmares. There's some weird fever dream stuff in there.

I am a bad enough dude to rescue the president.

The game really is incredibly well defined, being a significant challenge by the last level. It may be my fatigue but the last level and then the last boss (and all his forms) had me cursing up a storm. There was also one puzzle that my brain just couldn't work out at this time in the morning that I had to resort to looking up (and felt like an idiot when I saw what the solution was). But I more or less loved this game. Pretty sure it will go on my (imaginary) list of best platformers.

I think the ending was a bit too built up for me. I'd heard it was bittersweet. And yeah, it isn't totally happy, but it still maintains the general feel of a children's story. Nice, but not really impressive.

I like this explanation of why the other characters in the game don't actually help you save the world.

So yeah, one game down.

I guess I can replay the levels now to get the characters I missed out on. And I unlock new things. I'll see how I feel in the morning because boy howdy do I need some rest. The drinks have failed me.

And what the hell does "for your phantomile..." mean? Oh this game!

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - Vision 4-2

Time: 11:53pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks Consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine, 1 Sugar Free Red Bull

I still can't get over how fun the levels in this game are to play. I think I've just been playing a lot of more mediocre 2D platformers recently, but I love the subtle puzzle aspects in figuring out how to progress further and get the secret items.

I also want to point out how well Klonoa's character is done. In visual design, he somewhat resembles one of the many "attitude" mascot platform characters of the 16-bit generation. But his behavior in the game is of a more down-to-earth earnest character who was just out for a care free stroll when this whole adventure was thrust upon him. And the cute gibberish voices used for the character are a nice counterpoint to his "cool dude" design making him a much more deep and likable character than, say, Bubsy.

Also, Klonoa has a Pac Man on his hat. How cool is that?


The story has been pretty lighthearted so far. It has made me smile and once chuckle when I encountered a guard who talked like Yoda. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that.

After finishing the most recent level, things have become a bit more heavy. Klonoa's grandfather dies in his arms and reveals that saving the world is Klonoa's destiny. It doesn't quite work with the presentation that has come before it, but I'm willing to give it a pass to see how things develop.


I just took my dog for a walk and probably got scammed by some guy who was looking for money to buy drugs. But he seemed honest, had a complicated but believable story, and an effeminate lisp so I'm hoping he really is a hairdresser and I get a free haircut out of it.

Also, it is hot and late so my pants are now off. Just thought you should know.

Socialization Break #1

Time: Friday 9:34pm
Games Played: Quordy, Klonoa
Drinks consumed: 1 Sugar Free Rockstar, 2 Glasses of White Wine

Man cannot live by video games alone. And besides these friends missed my recent 30th birthday festivities and were taking me out for drinks, so how could I say no? It was really great catching up with them as I hadn't talked to them in probably about six months. And it got me looking even more forward to playing some games.

On my way back to my place, I stopped by my local supermarket and two bodegas. I completely struck out in finding any of the recommended energy drinks. The supermarket was all out of anything Rockstar, and the bodegas seemed to only carry Red Bull of energy as energy drinks. Since the local MLS team is the Red Bulls and I had just been talking about them with my friends, I grabbed one of them so that I wouldn't have to break into the Yerba Mates too early.