You know, until last year when I started [+/-], I never really got the saying that “There aren’t enough hours in the day.” Now I feel like I have way too many ideas rattling around my head and never enough time to do anything with them between work, school (which is over for the summer), and attempting to keep some semblance of a social life intact. It’s felt good to get so much done lately, even if I’m kind of scratching my head over what to review next. Fire Emblem Awakening, maybe. Also started playing Earthbound on my Droid now that I have a not-ass emulator going on it, with the reasoning that maybe I’ll be able to finish the damned thing if I can carry it around with me.
I have a weird thing about Earthbound. I like its look, I like its modern setting, and I like its quirkiness. The thing is, and I’m totally not alone in thinking so- it’s kind of boring as hell for the first stretch at least, before getting Paula.
I’ve been trying to take kind of a “how does this work/not work and why” approach to the game as a late-comer (sorta) to the cult classic, and it does do some genuinely clever things. Auto-win against weak enemies is genius, and needs to come back somewhere, anywhere, and how many games bother to have a condiment system for your healing food items? The battle text contains some pretty amusing attack descriptions that add to the flavor, but it also inadvertently calls attention to how dull battles really are and how much I forgot I hated being told that attacks I didn’t see myself do missed because the computer said so. Gotta admit though, the trees that burst into flames and do ridiculous amounts of damage in order to force you to mash A and get to YOU WON ASAfuckingP before your HP ticker rolls down is a clever way to demonstrate the mechanic early on.
What I’m driving at is basically, uh, sorry for spending like a month and a half on the Kid Icarus review, immediately following with Deus Ex, and not doing a third one this week since I couldn’t decide what the hell to write about and getting sidetracked with Flash, papercraft and mobile emulation.
Whattaya think? Earthbound next? Fire Emblem?
