What Did We Play Yesterday?

Mistria has become a cozy-ish thing to play while the family is watching TV. I've mostly ignored farming and focused on the mines, and last night I hit level 25 which has a big gateway that requires 4 items to pass. I already had 2, but I'll have to fish in the mines for a stonefish and grab a lantern moth from somewhere.

I've been bugging the shit out of Marsh and his brother, which is kind of fun, but generally speaking I just socialize with whomever happens to stray across my path. I'm starting to slowly build heart levels as a result, but I can see it would take quite some time to build up friendships with all the townsfolk.

The stamina situation appears to be improving. I don't feel like I'm immediately exhausted when I start mining. I may have picked up some stamina perks I'm not really sure, but being able to cook up trail mix with a potential bonus has been really swell. Every few days I make the rounds to gather up water chestnuts specifically for that. One thing I didn't realize until like yesterday is the dragon statue in the mines offers DIFFERENT perks than the one at the farm. Before, I ignored it because, you know, we have perks at home. Well, this is where the mining and combat ones are.

I unlocked the final tree, the blue bananas. This is a moment. Witness me. Slowly inching toward unlock completion.

I did a bunch of work on my Zen area and you're gonna get an artsy fartsy pic instead of the usual overhead shot. I filled in the area with the Zen flower type, the Camellia, and tossed in a bunch of pomegranate trees since it's next to a large mixed pear resource orchard.

I'm getting back into interior decorating, partly because all the new stuff, and partly because I have maintained a diamond surplus for a bit now. The tree house has a fun layout where four rooms form a sort of donut. It's easier to decorate because it's not as sprawling as some of the houses, like the castle. I'm pleased with my cute kitchen though I think a lot of my kitchens end up being fruit/cupcake themed because that's what I've got to work with. I'm making a conscious effort to mix more of the cyber furniture in. I don't think I've ever taken proper interior shots before, I've always done overheads. Those are a lot of fun.

At this stage, we have a very nice selection of flooring, wallpaper and rugs compared to when I first began playing this game.

The new Zen DLC is so awesome. Prior to this, I made a little sorta-zen area based on what was available. Now I've been able to expand the idea considerably. The pathway through the bamboo is inspired by one of my favorite botanical gardens.

I buy all the DLC and some are a mixed bag, but so far each has had at least one thing I love. It took me a while to get into the snow one, but I figured out the icy paths are really cool. The cyber one is not my style at all, but I came to appreciate the fencing. This DLC is my favorite so far. I like everything about it. It has tons of fences and gates, the interior stuff is welcome, the sand terrain is awesome. The fairy is a rice ball which is kinda weird but hey whatever!

Our team escapes along the river, and after a ridiculous octopus battle they get separated. At this point, the game splits into 3 paths.

Locke's adventure involves sneaking around South Figaro and stealing clothes, which is always good fun. The town is under imperial occupation, so Locke has to keep a low profile. When you're dressed as a soldier, some soldiers express dissent in the ranks. It seems nobody likes Kefka. Nor should they. Locke recruits Celes, who is a former imperial general turned prisoner. She has a runic ability, which allows her to absorb spells. Should be useful later.

Sabin ends up wandering around... wherever the heck he is. You can recruit the assassin Shadow, but he has a random chance to leave your party, so save scumming is useful. Shadow has excellent theme music, and I always liked his character design.

Played FFVI for several hours on a car trip. This is the first time I've played the GBA translation, and I got really hung up on the fact that the Figaro Matron in the Ted Woolsey version is high priestess in this one. According to Legends of Localization, high priestess is correct. But this is the first, possibly only, mention of religion in this game, and Figaro Castle having more than one priestess (presumably, since this one is the highest ranking) brings up so many questions. This is exactly the sort of thing that drives people like me crazy for no reason.

I really appreciate the overall setup. We have an amnesiac 18 year old girl who is extremely powerful and confused as fuck. From the beginning, her instinct is to do the "right thing" and she readily admits she doesn't know what the right thing is. Edgar and Locke are protective of Terra's autonomy, and Edgar even calls Banon out for getting emotionally manipulative when asking for Terra's help. The big brother vibes are strong.

This translation reveals that Edgar is obsessed with women of all ages, but his flirting with Terra is clearly an attempt to lighten the mood. He doesn't seem legitimately interested in her or frankly anyone he makes a pass at. I would argue if the 27-year-old king of Figaro wanted a girlfriend or wife or whatever, he'd have one. I don't recall him getting much characterization after his past is revealed, but my gears are already turning contemplating why Edgar is so Edgar.

I'm also fascinated with the implication that Edgar may have only locked the bandits up for convenience, and may have intended to let them go later. The thing about a game like this is there are so many little tidbits and details that never get explained.

I've been meaning to poke at either FFVI or Chrono Trigger, and I remembered there's a GBA version of FFVI so!! Here we are. I was obsessed with this game when it came out, but haven't played it in a loooong time, so it will be interesting to see if it "sticks" as part of the handheld rotation.

Scampering around in Mistria for a bit. The days feel a bit short, even though in reality they are probably only a few minutes shorter than the average farming sim. I think it's a combination of the slightly shorter day length, and the fact that my energy bar seems to go down kinda fast. I feel like I can barely clear stones or wood before I'm out.

In any case, I'm most interested in decorating my farm but I'm having trouble securing materials for the aforementioned reasons, so I decided to focus on upgrading tools for now.

I've been meaning to grab this for a while and 1.0 came out somewhat recently, so I took the plunge. So far, I really like the pixel art and have enjoyed my time with it. The characters are fun and I like hunting bugs, that's probably my favorite part right now.

So was anyone gonna tell me Tourian was where Mother Brain lives or was I just supposed to walk into a mess of metroids and figure that out for myself.

I for some reason did not remember this. The Mother Brain fight kicks it up a notch. There is a lot going on, between projectiles, lava, and the boss herself. The game doesn't really prepare you for this, IMO. One thing that helped was realizing I could break down the barriers up to her pedestal and they'd stay broken, so I was able to run back to a save point, recharge, and prepare for the battle.

Super missile, my beloved.

The room with the hanging bug thing was tedious as hell, because I just wanna run around blasting things and it took me a minute to get into a proper rhythm of freeze the bug, use as platform, fire missile, repeat, but I did it. I was thrilled to finally get some super missiles to deal with those pesky green doors.

I was surprised by how quickly I beat the area boss, Ridley. I simply stood beneath him and filled him with missiles, and didn't even bother dodging his attacks. I've allowed the game to guide me to this point, and haven't gone out of my way to get upgrades, but obviously having 6 health tanks and 100-something missiles made this battle easier. Some of the upgrades took a few attempts to nab, but overall, I've gotten most if not all of the ones accessible to me.

Finished up the Wild West chapter. You have the option of setting traps by giving the townfolk various items. Each person takes a different amount of time to set their trap(s) but this was no issue. After the traps were set there was some downtime before the baddies showed up.

While blowing up the Crazy Gang, quite literally, was entertaining, I found this chapter overall to be kinda meh. The story isn't interesting or novel, the gameplay is a bit tedious (you simply run around to every house, pick up whatever items are there, and run back to assign traps), and the ending is, well. Weird. Watching bandits and their horses get launched across the screen repeatedly was definitely the highlight. I didn't mean to kill Mad Dog (I assumed Sundown would let him, go, just as he did in their first duel) but I'm not sure I want to reload and replay the chapter to change that.

Continuing to enjoy Gradius Origin. I attempted to play Life Force which, as we all know, is hard as balls. I am definitely the least competent at this game in particular, but I have a special place in my heart for it since playing on an arcade machine during my travels.

Salamander 3 is my favorite though, and I'm still plunking away at it. This time I got to some sort of weird eyeball ship things, which occur after the weird volcano eyeball things. I'm not sure if I've reached this boss before, but this attempt felt like a milestone for some reason.

Encountering some alien environmental obstacles. Turns out those tiny bugs I encountered earlier can eat through certain barriers, and then there is chungus up there. Getting the Varia suit was nice, as it protects from heat and bugs (but not the hotter types of lava). There's lava, and then there's Lava evidently.

Currently playing through the Wild West chapter of Live-a-Live, which has some unexpectedly colorful dialogue. The game offers a few false dialogue options (the cowboy can say, "..." or whatever the game wants you to say, and it loops until you do the thing) but I get why they offer the option even though it's a kinetic story. It's a Seven Samurai type setup. I've gotten through the prologue, but haven't started prepping the town for the showdown.

Enjoying some Gradius, my beloved. I've only played the console versions of this, primarily NES, so I fired up the EU arcade version for a bit.