29/11/2020

Gaming 2021: A Blueprint

 

 

Hello there, dear fellow gamers! As that most rocky year 2020 is drawing to a close, I hope you're doing fine, in gaming as well as in life. 2021 will hopefully bring better things on all fronts; but since we're talking about games here, I'm gonna focus on my gaming plans for that upcoming year. And let me tell you: there are mighty changes ahead, oh yes precious.

Here's the situation in a nutshell: after a few years of general quietness and uneventfulness, my life has picked up the pace and is now busy as heck. Concurrently, my beloved game collection is larger than ever, and still growing by the month. I'm no math buff; but even I can plainly see that things are not going to add up. Something's got to give: and that something is the average time I spend on any given game.

This neatly squares with another recurrent issue of mine, which is none other than Long RPG Run Fatigue. While I tend to favour short and sweet RPGs, the current gaming scene is in no mood to humour me: the general consensus seems to be that 50 hours of play is a bare minimum, and that any RPG that offers less should cower away in shame. You know I can pour 50 hours into a game if I love it, dear fellow gamers; but you also know that I much prefer to keep it at 15 hours and move on to my gaming instinct's next pick.

 


And so, here's my plan: starting 2021, I'm going to operate on a 'One Week, One Game' basis. What I formally dubbed the OWOG system will be pretty simple: each week, I'll choose a game, play it as much as I can or want during that week, blog about it, and then put it back into its case when the week is over — rinse and repeat. If I cleared the game by that time, good for me; if the last boss is still prancing around, it'll just have to wait until next round.

This system will keep my gaming nicely fresh and varied, while giving me lots of momentum and motivation. Not only that, but it may actually be the ideal way to play games as far as I'm concerned, since I'm a serial game replayer that usually enjoys latter runs much more than first runs. And don't get me started on all those times I picked up a game, only to start a second run after a couple of hours and enjoy it ten times more than the initial run. Heck, I really should have implemented the OWOG system years ago, now shouldn't I?

Well, better late than never, as they say. December will be all about VNs, as I have a serious VN itch to scratch and a ton of titles reading for the reading; and after that, we'll roll with the OWOG system. I'll see you soon with my next run report, dear fellow gamers; in the meantime, keep playing and take care!

6 comments:

  1. Remember, if you still get the craving for the occasional RPG, Kemco is here for you! In fact, I played Miden Tower this year, and if anything their games have become even more grind friendly after Bond of the Skies. That game has a point in every dungeon where you can summon 3 consecutive encounters at will. No need to run in circles to grind any longer! And then once you're done with the grind, you can also cut the normal encounter rate by half, also at the same point. If you need to come back to the same dungeon later, you can further half that encounter rate, since you've already completed it once.

    There's also an area to level really fast about halfway through the game. No joke, you can get to level 999 in under an hour the further you go into that area. So yeah, the newer the Kemco game is, the better.

    I've been suffering fatigue for two years now (gaming in general), but I've finally fallen into a route; I make a list for all of my consoles, and commit to beating one game for each console each year. They differ in genres a lot, but they're all games I've been wanting to play for a while. I divide it by half, and if I get that half done before June, then I can play whatever games I want until the second half of the year comes along, and then back to the list. I also count some consoles I emulate in my PSX Classic, so all in all I have 14 games to go through each year. If emulation is an option for you, maybe consider some old SNES RPGs? They're quick with emulation speedups and there's so many of them that have been fan translated.

    (That said, if a game is truly bad, no guilt about not beating it. Nights on the Wii was terrible and did not deserve to grace this Earth. I had no choice but to drop it. And P.N.03 on the gamecube too.)

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    1. Don't worry, my beloved Kemco has a special place in my heart, and the impulse to indulge in one of their lovely RPGs is never far indeed. In fact, I'm seriously pondering purchasing every single digital Kemco RPG released on the Switch and storing them on a dedicated memory card; that's how far gone I am :P

      I would love to play SNES RPGs through emulation indeed; I've been dying to replay my own personal cult classic Terranigma for years, and I wouldn't mind playing other celebrated classics such as Actraiser, Bahamut Lagoon or Secret of Evermore (just the latter's name makes me all dreamy). I'll probably get down to it sooner or later, when the retro itch becomes unbearable ^^

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  2. ...I have absolutely no idea why people think 2021 will be any better than 2020...

    OWOG sounds like a good plan, though I really wonder if a week is enough? At 2-3 hours a day, that's only 14-21 hours, less than enough time to get even halfway through an RPG. You might have all these half-eaten games lying around at the end of the year.

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    1. Because l'espoir fait vivre, as the French say ^^

      I fully expect to have a ton of half-eaten games lying around at the end of the year indeed; but I really don't mind. There was a time when leaving a game unfinished was akin to mental torture for me; but these days, I have no qualms about ditching a game halfway through.

      Also, let's face it: as RPG veterans, we both know that 12 to 20 hours are more than enough to see everything an RPG has to offer; all play hours after that are just fluff and grinding. Last but not least, not beating the final boss will certainly not prevent me from getting engrossed in a game and blogging passionately about it; and it's really all that matters, isn't it? ^^

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    2. Hmm... if you say so? If a game isn't fun I don't mind dropping it, but I can't imagine putting something down just because the week has ended. Not when it's so hard to find good games to play these days. It will be an interesting experiment to follow so go for it!

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    3. Thanks! ^^ At that point in my gaming career, my gaming instinct is just roaring and wants to play tons of games. I've been terribly frustrated these last months because I was unable to play everything I wanted to play; and since I cannot handle several games at once, the OWOG system is the best compromise.

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