Gaming in COVID, Chipping Away

Well, a lot has been going on since March, in the world in general and in my life. I've been in the interesting position of working from home. In theory, that gives me more time for things I enjoy. But it's been a stressful time. And I find that gaming for stress relief versus gaming for fun is different. Somehow I seem to end up playing fewer games with fewer accomplishments on those games while taking more time, and enjoying it less. And, as I've said before, during the stressful months it's hard to write here.

I finished my Dragon Quest III minimalist challenge. Once my wizard hit level 35, the rest of the game went very quickly. I took her to level 40 outside Samanao and then changed her to a priest. Even at a low level, with high-level Wizard spells I still breezed through dungeons and bosses. I had already done everything outside the Necrogond before I even had changed my Goof-Offs to Sages. I had to level up a little for the Necrogond cave and Baramos after, but it still wasn't much time overall.

Zoma was the part of the challenge I hadn't quite figured out. I levelled till I had all spells for my two Sages and my Wizard turned Priest turned Fighter. I still couldn't beat Zoma with no equipment and no Sphere of Light at my HP levels, and set in for another long grind, before I had a flash of inspiration and discovered a strategy that didn't require further levelling. I made use of the Transform spell, spamming Lightning on Zoma. I did some math and realized that with the right sequence of commands, I could push the odds of winning with that strategy past 10%, and within half a dozen attempts I was successful. 

I've been working on doing Dragon Quest IV solo now. I did the first four chapters with the lead party member solo (Nara was the hardest, but I finally got lucky with the Silver Tarot Cards inflicting Balzack with Surround). I'm now up to Mintos in Chapter 5.

I'm giving in to an old semi-OCD play-style on this playthrough. Like I did in the solo Dragon Warrior III challenge, I'm stepping on every square. For reasons I'm not sure I can describe, I did this in Dragon Warrior I & II and found it an interesting way to mix up the level grind. By the time I started it in Dragon Warrior III solo, I had begun to tire of it but wanted to finish what I'd started. I actually started a solo Dragon Warrior IV around the same time and started off that way too, thinking it would help with the level grind. Once I finish this playthrough I won't do this again in another game.

But I had one other motivation besides mixing up the level grind. I thought it might help me in my search for Small Medals. The last time I played I made a list of the ones I found. Since the game doesn't tell you if you've found them all, I looked up the total number and learned I was missing three. Some time back I booted up the game just to play casually for a short time on my existing game file, and I just happened to search a conspicuous spot and find one I didn't have. I thought that forcing myself to step on each game tile might tune me in to check remaining conspicuous spots.

Small Medal Spoiler Alert: I've already found one that I didn't have, right in the town where I previously mentioned I'm at. So now I only need to find one more.

Once I finish finding them, I'll go back to my Japanese game file at level 99 and finish getting 100% of the items.

I also bought myself an import PS2 to play the remake of Dragon Quest IV. Unfortunately, the copy of the game my wife had previously gifted me wouldn't work on the system and I had to buy a new copy of the game. But I'll play the different versions side by side like I did with the other Dragon Quest games, once I finish my solo game.

I got Collection of Mana for my birthday and I've been playing Final Fantasy Adventure. It's a fun enough game, if a simple one. I've played it before (I have the original cartridge) but I don't remember it well. I just got the Rusty Sword and I'm expecting to finish it very soon. Then I'll replay Secret of Mana, a game I know I played through but which I also can barely remember.

I kind of stalled out on my playthroughs of Banjo Kazooie and Pokemon Blue, but I'll probably pick them up again before too long. I beat Super Mario RPG and have started Paper Mario, but so far I've only been playing when my daughter is around (debating on whether or not to just play anyway, because it seems really good).

I also finally beat Earthbound Beginnings. It's a very interesting game, but it would be a lot more fun if the encounter rate wasn't so terribly high. I didn't make good enough use of Repel Rings because I was afraid of spending too much gold and filling too much of my inventory, but I should have got them anyway. Most other items aren't terribly useful and you get way more gold than you can practically spend.

I want to replay Earthbound, but I need to get my hands on a working Super Nintendo. (I do have a copy of the game from way back when).

I've also been chipping away at unlocking things in old Smash Bros. games again. I finally looked up how to unlock Mewtwo in Melee, because nothing I did was working. I was trying to unlock each character without using the "Play xxx versus matches" method. Turns out (spoiler alert) you can't unlock him without playing versus. Both unlock methods are done with versus games.

I was able to determine that we had unlocked him this way in our older game files, so I was satisfied that I didn't miss out on anything here by looking it up.

There's probably more I'm missing. If I get the oomph to write again before long, I'll try and pick up the slack. I'm really looking for ways to make the whole experience of my games less solitary, and writing about it in a blog is one way to do that. We'll see what happens.