My love for OTB has escalated into an ungodly obsession: I find myself gorging on it more and more and trying to sneak in playing sessions everywhere I can. Generations wax and wane, dungeons are conquered and bosses are vanquished as in-game years and real-life hours go by, and I'm inching ever closer to the final showdown.
"Inching" is the right word indeed. Even after an undisclosed by the game yet probably ludicrously high number of playing hours, I still have a hard time dealing with, well, time management. Bloody time management, which coerces me into a given course of action when I'd rather be doing something else. So you want to vanquish an Oni boss? Oops, they haven't reappeared yet — better luck next time! You want to explore the depths of a dungeon? Nope, you have to breed and train your kids — come back in three months! You want to tackle a Feast? Too bad, you didn't transmigrate Nueko early enough — try again next year! You want to do anything that requires a couple of months at a time? Crap, your clan leader is about to bite the dust, and you have to prepare succession — come back in one bloody generation! It took me forever to clear the third Feast, because I could never find that sweet spot where everybody was prepped up and with enough life expectancy to pull it off. My family members were too young or too old, or there was not enough time to transmigrate and train Nueko, or some mandatory breeding was standing in the way; I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the planets finally aligned and I got my opportunity to strike, let me tell you that.
After being done with that third Feast at long last, I took myself some time to breath, regroup and map out my objectives for the next couple of generations. Waiting for that perfect blink of an eye to fight Seimei took a toll on my gaming morale, and I feel the need to forget about that cursed immortal for a while and unwind through other pursuits. Here's my plan for the next in-game decade:
1-Explore dungeons at leisure and to my heart's content. I finally saved enough money to get my paws on that famed wooden tag, the one that grants you access to a room containing all the game's keys in the Garden of Purrfection; all said keys are now in my possession, and no dungeon can resist me anymore. This is actually both a blessing and a curse: while it's great not to worry about keys anymore, this also means that the game's natural difficulty curve is destroyed, leaving me free to bump into foes far too strong for my clan's current level. (Of course, that makes for good power-leveling as well — before I scurry away after three battles to lick my gaping wounds, that is.) Anyway, since the game was kind enough to offer me brand-new dungeons after the third Feast, I'm definitely going to explore them, and thoroughly at that. We don't want to be called ungrateful, now do we?
2-Get my paws on Heirlooms. Now that I don't have to save one million ryōs anymore, I can treat my clan to those insanely expensive pieces of gear. The town's development level has a direct influence on the quality of the Heirlooms, so I'll start by raising my Weapon and Armour shops' levels. A bit of careful observation conveniently revealed that Heirloom stats vary between clan members, but also from month to month; so I'm gonna bide my time in the shadows and pounce when an Heirloom with stellar stats appear.
3-Follow my breeding instinct. I focused primarily on gods with good Fire genes during the early stages of my run, and it worked nicely for me. Lately though, I've been following Kochin's advice more often, just to see if the little weasel was indeed breeding-wise; but alas, it didn't work too great. I can tell that Kochin suggested gods whose gene pools would rectify the huge Fire imbalance in my clan and make my gene pool more harmonious; and while I can see the merits of such an approach, the result doesn't suit my playing style at all. I ended up with weaklings that cannot one-slice rows of foes without breaking a sweat like their ancestors did, and that's not what I signed for. Starting next generation, I'm ignoring Kochin's advice and following my mating instinct again.
4-Expand my Skill pool. While my clan's Fire expertise is nicely developed, they are stuck at the very first Skill level in all other elements despite owning scrolls for high-level Skills. I'm going to remedy that sorry state of affairs by making good use of the Mind and Heart-raising accessories. I've experimented a bit with them and noticed that if you equip them and let a month pass, your clan members will learn Skills if their boosted Mind/Heart is high enough to hit requirements. That's already pretty nifty, but there's something even niftier: take away the accessory, and the newly acquired Skills remain! Needless to say, I'm going to use and abuse that feature without a second thought. It's built into the game, so it's not cheating, is it? If I'm lucky, I may also learn a couple of Secret Arts in the process.
In other words, I'm gonna roam&grind like there's no tomorrow, because that's exactly what the aforementioned pursuits imply. Seimei can wait until I'm in the mood to confront him again; a couple of years sure don't mean anything for an immortal prick like him, do they? See you soon for the next chapter of my OTB epopee, dear fellow gamers; and as usual, thanks a lot for stopping by!
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