Backloggin’ the Year – June 2018 Edition
June was a rough month for gaming. Why you ask? Well, a lot happened between me going to the hospital, work being work, and then there’s that whole prepping to move thing. In fact, the husband and I move this month! While I would be thrilled to work through my backlog some more, somehow, I feel like it’ll be a miracle if I finish anything. Let’s talk about the one game I did finish in June!
Completion Time: 31 hours.
For those of you who have been following previous years of #JRPGJuly, many of you can recall that I was slowly working my way through Okage: The Shadow King. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to finish it during the previous two #JRPGJuly challenges, and last year I got pretty darn close having hit the final dungeon, The World Library.
It’s a cool, but very roughly designed dungeon. It packs quite an unexpected difficulty spike as well, which is why it took me so long to beat. I did a lot of grinding in this dungeon, mainly because I knew there would be no easy way for me to make it to the end safely. This dungeon is also a puzzle in that it requires players to find coloured keys that will only unlock certain doors, but in doing so you also have to wade through a very high spawn rate for enemies. I didn’t think it would take me so long to complete the game, and I also knew if I was going to finish it, I’d have to buckle down and do some grinding. So, I did it bits at a time with an audiobook in the background. This dungeon is the one I had been warned about so many times by friends who had played Okage, and sure enough they were right.
Hilariously, I was sort of sad that the final boss was so easy completed to the dungeon itself. It seems like the last half of the game was lopsided. I did love the ending and I am so glad that former staff member, Becky Cunningham, recommended that I play this game. Stan is one of my favourite characters and the humour and charm of this game just needs to be seen by anyone who loves quirky JRPGs.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
After reading Joshua Carpenter’s unpleasant experience with my favourite Final Fantasy game, it got me thinking about how I wanted to replay it. I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XV (which I will not be talking about here since it’s my #JRPGJuly pick), but Tactics was calling to me. I have played the original PSX version over seven times. It’s a game I know backwards and forwards and somehow still always find something new in it.
However, I never played the War of the Lions remake for PSP. The new localization left me a bit confused, I won’t lie. It was weird to be introduced to Argath when in my mind he was and always will be “That little turd, Algus.” I am not too far into the game at this point, as I am still in Chapter 1 and have just saved the Marquis. I know I am coming to the point in the game where I’ll where I will sob over a certain character’s death. Why does this game give me so many feelings? Every. single. time.
Regarding July…
Since I am in the midst of moving, I won’t be doing a backlog column for the month of July. Besides, you’ll be seeing my progress through Final Fantasy XV during our weekly updates for the awesome #JRPGJuly event that’s happening all month long. I hope to come back in August, with more games completed, and with life having settled down a bit more. Wish me luck!
Backlog Tally:
Number of RPGs completed: 8
Number of Non-RPGs completed: 6
Total Games Beaten: 14
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