So Many Games

I've been playing a larger variety of games lately than I have in quite some time. I muse on it all the time. I thought it might be time to write about it.

First off, I'm much farther in to my Dragon Quest III challenge. My wizard has around 243,000 EXP, closing in on 3/4 of the necessary experience to learn the Open spell. I had a goal to get there by the end of the month, but I got derailed from it a bit.

I recently finished playing Luigi's Mansion. I thought I had played it through years ago, when it was still fairly new, but nothing about the game beyond the first few rooms has prompted any memories. I think I must have put it in my queue and then forgot that I never actually got to it. I played it through with my daughter as an audience, because it was her interest in the recently released #3 that prompted me to get this game from my little brother and play it through.

I'm also getting close to finishing Super Mario RPG on my Wii U Virtual Console. That's a game I downloaded a few years ago also partly for my daughter's sake, but fell off playing fairly early in. But I picked it back up a little bit ago and I play it when it's just me and my daughter in the family room. I've wanted for a long time to play through the whole list of Mario RPG's, and my daughter has become a fan of the Paper Mario games. So I thought replaying this would be a great starting point.

I've picked up a few games on my Wii U, which makes a good system to play when I'm watching movies or TV shows with my family. I finally finished off 100% on Super Mario 3-D World. I had done all the original characters and about half of the game with Rosalina before falling off of it, but I've beaten everything with her now also. Her little spin jump move was surprisingly useful on Champion's Road, and the level wasn't as hard as I thought it would be after so much time (though it still took me a few hours of trying to get it).

In the last couple of weeks, I've also settled down playing Earthbound Beginnings, which I downloaded some time ago on the Wii U but, again, didn't get far in before getting distracted. It takes a bit of time to figure out what you can do at the beginning while simultaneously getting your character strong enough to do it. I finally finished the Podunk town area and just got back there after detouring through Magicant and Merrysville.

And I've officially picked up playing Pokemon Blue on my old Game Boy Advance. I played this game when it was new, but never finished it. One day back then I booted it up and found my game file had been deleted. I always thought it might have been related to accidentally sending the game through the washing machine, but I think I remember still playing my old file for a few days after that before I lost it.

In any case, I restarted, but at some point the game stopped loading properly at all. Again, I always suspected it might be related to running it through the washing machine a second time, despite the fact that I gave it ample time to dry before running it. But I've learned recently that for all these years it may never have been a problem with water at all.

Last year I was researching game cartridge repair for a different cartridge, and I was inspired to try something. I took a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol and cleaned up the contacts on my Pokemon Blue game. I was floored to find that it booted up fine. After all these years the only thing that kept me from finishing the game was dirty contacts!

After all these years, I had planned to start over, but after looking at my file and the Pokemon I'd caught and named, I couldn't go through with erasing it. Instead I found a good Let's Play video on Youtube and watched it up to the point that it caught up to my file, which was shortly after the S.S. Anne. This morning I was on my way through the Rock Tunnel when my GBA battery suddenly died (it's an SP model with the rechargeable battery). Sometime soon I want to get a Link Cable and Link with the Pokemon Yellow I bought for my daughter last year in anticipation of my playthrough. I think she'll get a kick out of that.

There's more to say, but I'm out of time. I'll try and to another entry before long.