Fynn
is an EoFF Hero and/or Heroine
Radical Dreamer

Hey I just want to wish you a Happy New Year and I hope that you have a excellent 2018 !

Very true, none of this is helped by the fact I kind of want to jump back into a new playthrough of Demon's Souls or Bloodborne.

I do feel my discussion about choice has led me to an idea for Pumpkin's website she wanted me to write for.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to dive into a massive series at the moment. Not to mention Tactics Ogre is kind of testing my patience at the moment. If perma-death doesn't kick my ass in the original, then it's the leveling/skill system in the remake that gets on my nerves. Besides, I got NieR: Automata for Christmas, so that or Fallout 4 will be my next gaming foray, unless I break down and pick up either Dark Souls II or III with the holiday money I acquired.

Sorry to hear your wife isn't feeling too good. Though great you've got some inspiration for a new story.

It always sucks when that happens but it happens I'm afraid.

That was one of the major criticisms I heard about the game as well. That and the game should not have had a silent protagonist.

Glad it was relaxing at least and you got a chance to unwind. I could seriously use that right now as this time of year is usually really stressful for me. Good luck with your writing as well, and I like the idea of getting a short story written every week. Good motivation.

How was your holiday?

Ozma, is interesting from a story standpoint, I'm still trying to raise her levels to make her worthwhile in battle but it already seems to me like she's built to be what the Rune Fencers were suppose to be, a decent Red Mage type build. Raveness has been also kind of underwhelming but I blame it on keeping her in a underwhelming job class, I should just bump her into a White Knight and forget Lans companions.

I actually ended up getting my English patch to work and started playing the original SNES version of the game, and despite being significantly more difficult, as I feared, I'm enjoying it a bit more mechanically. I can't fathom why Matsuno dropped training mode from any of his games as it feels like the perfect system to really test out the Job Class System and party builds. Mostly I've been screwing around with FFXII:TZA.

Maria's arc is kind of boring, but Japan seems to love her for some reason if disproportionate amount of fan art she gets is anything to go by. I do happen to like Wings, but it's not my favorite track in the game either, though I do feel it's the highlight of that sequence, even if it was used better in Disc 2. I also happen to love the Thames, but I like the levity it brought to the story. It was getting pretty serious and grim up until then and it was nice to just have something kind of fun, besides it justifies how the party was going to reach Zeboim.

I happen to really like Disc 2 the way it is myself. I usually feel the game's combat system finally loses its impact about the time you reach Solaris, so reducing the dungeon crawls never bothered me. I feel my only desire to see the Disc expanded would be for the chance to actually use Elly's Omnigear (and perhaps get Maria and Emereldas) give better resolution to the Kislev arc and Rico since it's obvious there was a lot more going on there; and I wouldn't mind seeing more about the Diabolos incident from Laca's story arc, as it would have been interesting to learn more about Bart's ancestors and Grahf's war. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing just a bit more of grown up Abel to be honest. None of this are deal breakers and I prefer Xenogears cutting branches to really focus on the important core parts of the plot, but I wouldn't be bothered seeing some of it expanded either.

My holidays were okay, I've been mostly brainstorming ideas for my one novel we were discussing and finally getting back to Soul as well. I've nearly completed the timeline draft in the supplement materials which will help me out.

Finally got to Chapter 4. Missed out on recruiting the pirate dude, but I got Ozma at least.

I feel people make a bigger deal out of it than it really is. Most likely, people who haven't touched a 3D Platformer from that era in quite awhile.

I'm still on Chapter 3, but recruited Hobyrim the Swordmaster. I'm taking the fight to the Bakram right now.