The game may not be in the spotlight in today’s ever-growing fighting game community, nor the company that developed the game is the same as it was, but no one can deny the excellence that Garou: Mark of the Wolves brought to the fighting game genre. It is one of SNK’s most revered games outside of the top King of Fighters games where it has garnered respect of fighting game fans from numerous backgrounds and preferences. Garou is well known for its excellent fighting, distinguishable and personable cast of characters, and beautiful presentation from the outstanding soundtrack to the colorful animated stage backgrounds.

I instantly fell in love with the game 15 years ago when I purchased the Sega Dreamcast version of the game. I still own that copy with me to this day, and it still works! It was one of the many Dreamcast games I pour in numerous hours and gotten much joy out of, even though I mostly played the game alone back then without the knowledge of the advanced mechanics and other items that I did not know back then I know now. There are some mechanics Garou has that are similar to other games, and other mechanics that I cannot recall if any other fighting game has. It’s interesting to learn these mechanics now that I’m more infatuated with the ins-and-outs in fighting games and increased my affirmation in Garou.

T.O.P. System

The T.O.P. system gives the fighter increased damage on their attacks, slowly restores health up to the end position of the T.O.P., and access to the T.O.P. attack. I knew about the first two attributes back then, but never knew about the attack until recently. The T.O.P. attack has the character perform a close-encounter attack then flip away, which sort-of acts like a dragon-punch. It’s something I’ll need to think about and utilize a little bit whenever my character’s T.O.P. is activated.

Low/High Dodge Attacks

Some fighting games have mechanics specially for overhead attacks, such as Street Fighter III’s universal overhead attacks, up to Persona 4 Arena’s all-out attack. Garou has it’s own version of an overhead, dubbed “Low Dodge Attack” from the Garou Dreamcast instruction manual. The character will perform a hop then attack high. Garou also includes a “High Dodge Attack” where it dodges (maybe standing) and aerial attacks with a unique attack.

Feints

I do not think to my knowledge that many other fighting games ever had feints as a fighting mechanic accessible to the entire cast. There are many fighting game character that has feints as part of their special move attack, to fake out performing their special attack to surprise the opponent. The fighter’s feints look like taunts on the surface. They’re not much use if they’re simply thrown out there, but can be an effective tool to pull out once in a blue moon.

Breaking

I never understood how Breaking moves worked when I younger and never executed it at all. But with better understanding of the genre nowadays, breaking moves occurs where a character cancels one move in order to quickly perform another action. It’s similar to the roman cancel/rapid/one more cancel mechanic from the GG/BB/P4A Arc System Works games or FADC (focus attack dash cancel) in Street Fighter IV. In Garou, breaking moves are limited to a character’s specific special attack. All Garou characters have one move where they can Break and follow-up. [Tizoc has two special moves that can be breaked.] It’s a nice tool that can serve both as an additional offensive tool to cancel that special move into additional attacks afterward and a defensive tool to stop the entire special move to be performed and punished by the opponent who has blocked or avoided that particular special move.

Just Defend

Just Defend is Garou’s version of Street Fighter III’s parry, whereas if you block at the same time your opponent’s attack is about to hit you earns you a Just Defend, which gives the player two significant benefits. The first benefit is the ability to counterattack the opponent’s attack. Some attacks cannot be counterattacked by simply blocking and waiting for their opponent’s attack to finish because the opponent’s attack has a ton of priority or advantage frames that makes it very hard in many instances to quickly counter. Just defend diminishes some of the advantageous priority of the opponent’s attack and gives the player the opportunity to launch a counterattack. The player also earns a tiny bit of health back with a successful Just Defend.

Didn’t Know ‘Til Now

There were a few recent revelations that I never knew Garou had recently. There are probably a few more secrets that I probably did not know still exist in Garou, but whatever they may be, are neat to know. Hotaru and Hokutomaru are the only ones (I think) in Garou that can perform an air throw. Bonne Jenet has a secret third super that is only performed from a Just Defend, then A, B, C.

Similarities with Street Fighter III?

If you do pit Garou and SFIII against each other, you can see both games share a lot of characteristics. Both games represented drastic changes from their previous iterations of the franchise with a brand new artistic look and a brand new cast of characters with only the main iconic protagonist carried over (Terry Bogard for Garou, Ryu for Street Fighter). Both games were released around the same time (vanilla SFIII in 1997 with Garou in 1999) and features parry/JD with short strung combos, attacks that generally dish out significant damage, and proper use of advanced mechanics to gain the upper hand. But that’s where the similarities end between the two games. Once you get a feel on how both games play, there is a grand difference on how you will end up playing both games.

Still Active?

Unfortunately, Garou isn’t significantly played much worldwide online or featured much in fighting game tournaments despite its acknowledged excellence. Even though a X-Box 360 version of the game is available with online play, I would highly advise people to NOT PURCHASE THIS VERSION OF THE GAME. The online netcode developed in the X360 version is downright terrible. Luckily, there is a way to play pretty stable Garou online. But it’s not available on modern gaming consoles or handhelds, it available through a PC program called Fightcade. There is no word an updated re-release of Garou with good netplay announced for consoles. [AKA not gonna happen]

I do not have much opportunities to play Garou through Fightcade, but I’ll try to get some matches in over the weekends/holidays/days off if possible. I’m terrible in the game, but the game is still very fun to play nonetheless.

The Last of the Original SNK Greats

The old and revered SNK that everyone recalls is long gone when they first went bankrupt in 2000. The current version of SNK, SNK Playmore, isn’t the same SNK that I recall. Outside of some great KOFs (particularly KOF 2002, KOF XI, and KOF XIII), SNK Playmore has not done much for me. Their celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Neo Geo consists of a mere bundle sale of SNK classic games on Android. Garou was one of the final releases of the good old kick-ass SNK and it still holds up for me to this day. Everything is simply beautiful and well executed in all aspects of the game, whether its the fighting and mechanics, the personable characters, and presentation going above and beyond a normal fighting game would contain. I am especially fond of the soundtrack and stage backgrounds.

[My top four SNK pillars are Garou: Mark of the Wolves; The Last Blade 2; King of Fighters 1998; SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium]

Thanks for reading!

Work

Nothing much new to report from me over the second quarter of this year. My job continues to keep me really busy with the Philadelphia, PA branch office continuing to win numerous projects, both big and small in and around the city of Philadelphia. My workload increased in April as the office hired a new part-time assistant to myself and my co-worker and it’s been tough to supervise his work while taking care of my on-going responsibilities. It took the assistant awhile to get accustomed to his duties and is still making little mistakes here and there, but I feel the benefits of the assistant taking care of the frequent administrative tasks from me is starting to pay off a little.

Due to training and supervising the new part-time assistant, I have put my efforts in searching for a new job on hold. I plan on returning to the search a little bit in the near future. It’s not that my current job is bad, it’s that I am feeling lethargic about my responsibilities with my current employer. I hope that the new occupation that I’ll eventually land at will provide that change of place spark that I hope will be interesting and engaging work to perform.

Other Stuff

My birthday came and went in May, where I turned 30 years old this year. I felt like like my twenties went by in a flash. My brother and I went to a few places in Philly and in New Jersey. We visited Creep Records in the Northern Liberties section of Philly and ate some BBQ at the newly refurbished Khyber Pass Pub, which was formerly a music bar venue. To switch things up in the evening, we did our normal shopping up at Princeton, NJ, then wrapped up the day stopping by Halo Farm at Trenton, NJ for their ice cream. Otherwise, my birthday wasn’t special. I didn’t receive any gifts from friends and family (I actually spent everything over the day’s venture with my brother) and received a few birthday shout-outs from friends by Facebook, Skype, and Twitter.

The only other significant item I can share is that I started a separate blog at Wordpress as a place to work out my writing kinks and to post thoughts on certain video games (and other items) which I feel my opinion on it would be better served expressed out as a blog entry. I have been proactive on my writing since I started it, writing my extended thoughts on four games and a couple of offshoot entries. I do not expect to maintain this pace but I hope that my writing and thoughts are grammatically sound and interested to read. [I understand that I could have posted my output on Giant Bomb, but I decided not to to minimize notifications for those who follow me at the site.]

That pretty much wraps up my ongoings in Q2 2015.

Q2 2015 Gaming

After take a toll upon undertaking Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together in Q1, I took a different stance and focused on completing short games as a change of pace and to knockout games from the large backlog. It was definitely a nice change that I sorely need to restore some confidence and enjoyment of playing video games. I knocked out eight games in this quarter: Klonoa: Door to Phantomile; Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse; Sayonara Umihara Kamase+; Kid Icarus Uprising; Binary Domain; Splatoon; Alan Wake: American Nightmare; Driver: San Francisco. All games were enjoyable to play to a degree, some games more fun and memorable than others.

Along with the eight games I knocked out from my backlog, I also played sessions of a few games that continue to keep me entertained, such as Under Night In-Birth: Exe-Late, Guilty Gear Xrd, and a few other games. I still feel a bit frustrated that I have not put in the time to improve in UNIEL and Xrd (fighting games in general), but I am still enjoying my time with them even if I am not winning much. I hope there’s some unexpected breaks on the horizon where maybe I can try to level up at them. Splatoon’s multiplayer has been fun to play up since its release, though I wonder how much I’ll stick with it until my interest for it wanes.

Q2 2015 Items

Game Reviews

• Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse
• Kid Icarus Uprising
• Binary Domain
• Driver: San Francisco

Music Albums I Thought Were Awesome

• Bjork - Vulnicura
• Broadcast - HaHa Sound
• Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear
• Jessica Pratt - On Your Own Love Again
• Lightning Bolt - Fantasy Empire
• Mount Eerie - Sauna
• Shugo Tokumaru - L.S.T.
• Shugo Tokumaru - Night Light
• They Might Be Giants - Glean
• Torres - Sprinter
• Tribulation - The Children of the Night

Manga I Thought Were Awesome

• 7 Billion Needles #1-#4
• The Ancient Magus Bride #1
• The Angel of Elhamberg
• Black Lagoon #10

Q3 2015 Notes and Goals

Job Searching

As I stated above, I plan on resuming my hunt on landing a new occupation for the second half. It will be tough to stay committed to it as I always feel exhausted but I hope to land something.

Jury Duty?

I got my notice for potential jury duty this past week. I hope I do not get selected to serve on a jury but I do not like my chances of escaping this one. I’ll find out mid-August if I actually have to travel to Doylestown, PA for jury duty.

Attendance at Summer Jam

I always put this on my notes/goals list yearly at this time because I would like to have a few more FG tournament attendances under my belt. Summer Jam is coming up on the last weekend of August. I doubt if I ever compete at a tournament at all, but I’d like to be in the spectacle of the tournament by being there. Right now, I’d say it won’t happen but hope that changes. (If not Summer Jam, then Northeast Championships in December, which I’d prefer to go if I have a chance this year because it’s the biggest Philly FG major out of the three Big E runs yearly.)

Ongoing Writing

I have enjoyed my time writing out my thoughts on particular video games that I feel requires further explanation than a paragraph summary on it. I’ll try to mix up on the reactions of games that I plan on writing about to bring a nice overall spectrum of the good, the bad, and everything else. Plus, it’s a nice hobby to keep your mind occupied on focusing on an item to tinker around and publish.

The Next JRPG Trek

I think I had my fun in knocking out a bunch of short games and ready to take another lengthy JRPG journey. There is one game on my backlog that I think folks would be pretty surprised at me for not completing and I will rectify that in Q3. I hope to complete that game in time to tackle Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold toward the start of Q4.

Self-Health

I’ll end this quarterly blog on reminding myself to take better care of myself, whether it’s squeezing in exercises over a busy work week, eating healthier foods, not get overly stressed by work or other crazy matters, etc. I’m getting old and it’s going to get much harder to maintain good health.

End

Apologies for not having much to discuss, but thanks for reading nonetheless.

I placed the first two sections under a spoiler as they're pertaining to work which some of you know I'm already discussed a lot on, but it's there for anyone who's interested in reading.

Gaming

Shit Luck with Gaming This Quarter

I started off the year well with two games that I found to be highly enjoyable in different spectrums. Valiant Heart was a game that took me by surprise by its heartfelt story from its cast of characters set in World War I and providing some neat history notations of the war. I also loved the graphic/art look of the game and the simple puzzle gameplay didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game at all. Puyo Puyo Tetris succeeded to my eyes by providing an enjoyable and interesting set of game modes utilizing both franchises’ gameplay. I found the regular versus mode where you can have PP v PP, T v T, or PP v T the most enjoyable mode from this crossover game, but all of the other modes that have more crossover elements in play are well designed and have are mostly fun in their own right.

Unfortunately, all the other games I decided to tackle this quarter ended up adding to the frustration with the stressful commitment to work and important life stuff. Tactics Ogre’s pains were its micro management, drawn out campaign, and challenging stages that border on impossible if you haven’t gotten your army managed right. Oreshika suffered with surprising limited options over the control of your clan, annoying micro management, and stale battles and dungeons. Both OlliOlli games were hampered with the trick stick method of performing tricks, strict and constant prompts to hit a button to land, and more in the case of OlliOlli 2, convoluted level design. The most frustrating part about all of those games I didn’t have such a great time with is that they all have elements of being a great game but fell apart on how it went about it.

The Battle to Find That Gaming Fire, Again and Again

I wrote a blog on March 15 where I wanted to express my waning enjoyment of playing games, but it didn’t quite get the message out as well as I hoped. I don’t want to add in much to what I wanted to say, but I wanted to stress again that it’s been a constant struggle to constant regain that feeling of enjoyment from gaming. I had low points this quarter when I had my mental breakdown with work where my emotions were out of whack, and then the compounded frustration of continued stress from work and unsatisfactory gameplay from Oreshika and OlliOlli pushed me to do that blog.

My gaming mettle has been severely tested and it’ll continue to be pushed by a number of factors. Playing one good game soon may help turn it around a bit, but my concern is trying to sustain my gaming hobby outside of the ephemeral bursts of joy that it generates. Gaming has been a significant impact over my life, from having something in common with others during my childhood to being one of the few sources of relief in my working portion of my life. Hell, I wouldn’t have met without any of you guys without gaming. I apologize to all that I’m been way out of sorts so far this year and I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to quickly turn it around for the best, but I’ll bear it through and hopefully be in a better mental shape soon.

Miscellaneous Items

The only significant items I can bring up outside of constantly talking about work and gaming are the two music concerts I attended over this period. Both of them were okay, but at least it was something to break the monotony of going through the usual motions throughout the week. Outside of that and a return trip to two record stores, it’s sadly been more of the same.

The first concert I attended was Aesop Rock on February 27 at the Union Transfer. His act was okay and definitely connected with the crowd, but I felt his act disconnected with his persona expressed from his studio material, where he comes off more introverted and frustrated. But the act that hilariously stole the show was the second opener Homeboy Sandman. I’m still quite speechless from his act. My biggest personal complaint at the show was that I had to inhale a ton of second hand pot smoke in the venue. And no, I did not get high.

The second concert I attended was A Winged Victory for the Sullen on March 26 at the First Unitarian Church Sanctuary. That’s right, a concert held in a church. R5 Productions (one of the bigger concert promotion companies in Philadelphia, PA) typically runs concerts in the basement room of the church, but sanctions shows in the sanctuary for particular acts. The venue was the correct choice as the music sounded amazing. In spite of a good performance by the main act, I was a little surprised that they decided to kind of mish-mash their songs in a suite-type setlist and only played for an hour. The concert was done by 10:40, probably one of the shortest concerts I ever attended.

Music Albums I Thought Were Awesome

• The Aisler Set – How I Learned to Write Backwards
• Broadcast – Tender Buttons
• D’Angelo and the Vanguard – Black Messiah
• Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
• Sannhet - Revisionist
• Six Organs of Admittance – Hexadic
• They Might Be Giants – Apollo 18
• Viet Cong – Viet Cong

Manga I Thought Were Awesome

• Prophecy Volume 2
• Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer Volumes 3-4
• Seraphim 26661336 Wings
• Whispered Words Volume 3 [Finale]

Q2 Items

As much as I’d like work to not be quite as hectic, the spring season is typically where work picks up a notch as weather becomes a non-factor in effecting work. The company suffered lower than expected financial results due to the cold and snowy weather and the President/CEO wants all employees to really ramp up their workload this quarter. I also have that part-timer that adds more to my plate. If I thought Q1 was bad, I really have to muscle through Q2.

I’ll do my best to continue to dedicate a few hours each week in looking into and applying for new relevant job postings out there, though I feel like I’m at an awkward crossroads with looking for a new place to work while my current employer has placed a lot on me with the added pressure of the part-time employee. But for me, the work I’m producing isn’t as engaging as it once was and I’m longing to do something different, or at least tasks more relevant to actual accounting work material.

There are two music concerts this quarter that I’m interested in going, but I’m not going to push as hard compared to the concerts I attended in Q1 to go. The ones that I’m eyeing in possibly going are They Might Be Giants on April 25 and Wire on June 2. I don’t think there are other events that I know of that I’d like to go in Q2. In Q3, I’d love to go back to Otakon and Summer Jam again.

[NEW BLACK LAGOON MANGA (Volume 10) APRIL 21!]

In the upcoming gaming release department, the only games that I’m strongly leaning toward purchasing at launch are Splatoon and Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker. I’ll also have Mighty No. 9 if that finally gets released this quarter. I’m probably going to pass on Etrian Mystery Dungeon despite of liking what it has presented so far, plus I’m way more interested in the other Etrian release later this year in Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold. I haven’t done a good job in limiting new games onto my backlog in Q1 (thanks to those certain PSN sales weeks), so I hope I don’t go too overboard in Q2.

I’m pretty stubborn and really like to see their games through to some sort of end, but I simply couldn’t go on with Oreshika and both OlliOlli games. So now with a new clean slate, I plan on tackling through Attack of the Friday Monsters A Tokyo Tale in one session (game is really short from what I read) and Shante and the Pirate’s Curse. I’ll get right into Splatoon once I acquire that game. Outside of those three is up for grabs, though I want to squeeze in Kid Icarus: Uprising in this quarter if possible.

I'm brainstorming of a new list that I want to post close a specific date in this quarter. It'll be similar to the Favorite Fighting Femme Fatales list in which I'll focus on favorite characters in certain games.

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That’s all I have to share for this blog. Thanks for reading! No really, thanks!

Bravely Default / Castlevania: Symphony of the Night / Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories / Final Fantasy Tactics / Final Fantasy XIV / Guilty Gear Xrd: -SIGN- / Hard Corps / Helldivers / Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII / Persona 4 Arena Ultimax / Resident Evil Revelations 2 / Under Night In-Birth: Exe-Late / Yakuza 4

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These are some of the games that were frequently discussed lately in the two internet chat groups I joined in a few years ago. I’m always amazed on the constant discussion and enthusiasm that everyone in each group brings in everyday. As much of my time the past three years have slowly been taken up by more pressing matters (primarily increasing responsibilities at my current occupation), it’s nice to look into both chat groups daily and see everyone’s perspectives over a variety of topics. One day, two members may have their discussion over a game where they on the opposite ends of opinion on. On another day, the group will collectively agree over another item. But no matter what they like or don’t like, they’re always there bringing up something fresh to discuss on the table.

This is going to be a bit weird for me to say, but those groups along with a few other users are helping me keep my own enthusiasm of gaming afloat. My own love of gaming has been challenged considerably in the past few years in spite of playing numerous great video games over that time period. I suppose the groups act as a constant reminder that there’s still something awesome going on in gaming. It’s the language they got me to know them in the first place and it’d be a shame for me to completely lose out interest in a hobby that a have befriended with others along with being such an enormous influence in my life.

In spite of reading numerous interesting thoughts from folks in the internet chat groups and the break from gaming, I still harbor some mitigating thoughts against gaming. I’m still not settled with myself with gaming at this point. I probably will have to resign to the fact that I may not fully regain the memorable joys I had with gaming in the past. Obviously a lot has changed from back then and it’s been harder for me to feel like I’m really enjoying my time with gaming now. I just hope that things in life don’t get more chaotic where I’ll end up losing more time and enjoyment with gaming.

I’m amazed with folks that I have come across and folks in the industry that can constantly find something new to love in gaming in spite of being so entrenched in it and the muck that has crept up and caused a major stir in the past few years. I have played my fair share of games, but it’s just a small pile compare to the number of games all of you folks have played. I’m also amazed to see many folks not even feel a hint of burnout over playing a ton of games over the years. It’s awesome to see everyone else keep digging in with the games they’re getting into, if it’s tackling a number of games or dedicating time in knowing the ins and outs of a few games, it’s all smiles from what I see.

It’s all that exuberance that is what makes video games so great, and something that I hope to capture from time to time as I continue to grind out the number of hours entrenched at my current job while trying to dedicate more time in looking for a new job that I hope to land, along with other stuff. I haven’t had much luck with the recent games I just played (OlliOlli, Oreshika), but hoping tackling some other games along with getting back to some things (another entry in GB’s GG Xrd weekly, casual UNIEL) and at least feel like I’m having some fun with gaming.

I understand that many of you have probably read plenty of other articles, blogs, and threads in regards to a person’s waning love of gaming over the years, and I apologize in adding one more to the column. But it’s been something that’s been harboring in my mind for awhile and I wanted to express. I don’t expect much readership on this blog and no one needs to comment it at all. I know that I’ve thrown out that I’m having a tough time dealing with work on a constant basis, but I never thought it would come up to a point where it’s making such an impact where I start to lose considerable interest in gaming. I hope that it never comes close to a mere thought to anyone else.

I wish I had something better to wrap this blog up for. I apologize again for seemingly being non-existent for the most part, especially to folks in the two chat rooms. Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this blog.

Preface

I was going through a streak of completing a bunch of games in the past couple of months, mostly from the rush to complete 2014 released games to evaluate for my Game of the Year 2014 List, and was looking to knock out an older dated backlog game at the start of this year. I was debating on a number of JRPGs and decided on Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together over Rune Factory 4, SMT Devil Survivor Soul Hackers, and Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God. I thought it was going to be more of a lengthy, semi-challenge, but leisurely game to play. Instead, it ended up being a very lengthy and challenging game that probably didn’t do my health any good combined with my already stressful schedule and workload at work so far this year. But through continuous perseverance and luck, I saw this game to (one of) its end.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together has been heralded as a cult-classic in the crowded JRPG genre, with Greg Kasavin giving it an enthusiastic review on Gamespot and naming it his number one game in 2011 GOTY list here in Giant Bomb. The game’s director and some of the development staff of this game went on to develop the well-known and revered game in Final Fantasy Tactics. While I still enjoyed much of what the game offered, there are flaws in my opinion that makes me differ from the majority of opinion of TO: LUCT being a really great game.

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You and Your Army

After the first couple of battles, you are given a number of free recruits from a number of different classes to start your order. You also can recruit a number of story-driven characters into your order if you choose the right choices and save them in their respective battle(s). For a good first 60% of the game, it didn’t seem if you didn’t have a lot of members under your order. But starting from Chapter 3 onward, the importance of having a sizeable order consisting of numerous soldiers under each class becomes essential. Certain battlefields and enemies calls for the player to counteract with his/her best team of soldiers to win the battle.

It would be nice to know what enemies you were going up against to choose. When you go to the next area to battle, you are basically blind picking your group of soldiers and hope they are the correct mixture of soldiers that can best navigate and win the battle. Numerous times I have to quickly restart the game (luckily an easy process to abuse with the Vita) in order to put forth the best group for the upcoming battle. Fire Emblem’s method of showing the map and enemy locations would’ve saved a lot of time for me to survey the field and enemies and field my best group right then and there, instead of having to do it over twice over.

There is also a significant difference on acquiring non-story soldiers into your order that the player needs to know and consider on approach throughout the game. The player can hire/buy certain recruits (warriors, clerics, wizards, knights, and rune-knights) at a shop to add into their order. The player can also recruit soldiers by convincing them in the middle of battle. Either method has their own advantages and disadvantages, but it’s still essential for the player to build a significant army no matter which method is done.

Joining In the Fight

Throughout Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, you’ll come across numerous story characters that you can eventually recruit if they’re still alive at the end of the battle and if you meet certain conditions. Some of the early story characters quickly join in as long as their alive at the end of the battle. Others will require a ton of effort, especially for new characters that join in the second half of the game. An extreme example of a tough story character recruit is Sherri, who is only joinable in a particular story path, must not kill her in your battle against her, and have her sister Olivia a high enough loyalty level to recruit her in a specific time and town. Other recruits require having a specific character in battle in order to recruit them either right then and there at the battle’s conclusion, or to be recruited in a future battle/event.

In my run-through, a number of story-driven characters ending being my strongest/go-to characters in many battles, especially the ones who join in early into the campaign. Outside of the OP, Canopus is my MVP in my party. His ability to be strong in melee and ranged combat and the ability to easily navigate the battlefield with ease makes it hard to keep him out of any battle. All story recruited characters come with the latest equipment and their own set of assigned skills, though new story recruits who are brand new classes into the game will have their pre-set equipment unequipped as their class level reverts back to level 1 as they join your order. It’s odd and a bit frustrating to recruit new class characters into your order even as late as right before the endgame, making the task to know the classes’s skills and leveling them up an additional and annoying challenge.

I Like You, I Hate You

One of the little gameplay elements I missed early on before I caught on later was that every character in your order has their own morale/loyalty level. All members of your party will have their morale/loyalty level change throughout the game depending on your actions. One item that drastically effects a member’s morale/loyalty is how many of which clan you defeated/killed in battle. If you kill too many members of a certain clan, members of your order who are from that clan will have their morale sink. It can sink so much that they can actually leave your order on their own.

In learning that interesting tidbit, I try my best to mitigate killing many enemies if possible if the battle objective is to simply defeat the enemy leader. In many instances, standing pat and only killing off certain other enemies before plowing the enemy leader with finishing moves. I actually went back to an earlier save after I learned about this because numerous members going deep into chapter 2 were actually hating my guts and threatening to leave. I did much better going back and continuing onward from there. Maintain high morale with your characters can help, especially with your story recruited characters as their morale affects being able to recruit other story characters toward the end of the game.

Gonna Pump You Up…

As you’ll be encountering new classes throughout the game, it’s a challenge to get the new classes to catch up with the levels of the rest of your order and the enemy’s levels. A class that is not represented in battle will not receive any experience points, so in order for an under-leveled class to level up, they have to be called into battle. It’s an added challenge for the player to combat as their party is handicapped with one under-leveled member against the enemy army, all at top level. As long as the character survives battle (don’t “die” in battle, can still earn experience points in an incapitated state and end of battle). The other important item to account for is that the game awards a majority of class experiences points to the lower-leveled classes, so it’s up to the player to be mindful of what classes each character is in every battle.

But Not Too Much

Another reason why I restarted my run to an earlier save in chapter 2 was that I noticed that overleveling your members is actually BAD in TO: LUCT. The main reason why is that the game packs enemy AI with the top equipment and skill set. Even if you manage to go over the enemy levels (particularly in the story battles), that doesn’t mean the battle will be easier for the player. In fact, at the final stretch of battles, the enemy AI actually matches your levels, which makes grinding for it very moot. The magic number is to match the enemy level throughout the game with the latest equipment and best group of skills for your best soldiers.

In the Heat of Battle

I wrote a lot of text on the importance of having a great constitution of characters and classes in your order, that’s because it ultimately results in every story battle. There are some battles where you need to have swift offensive-minded party, other battles requiring strong defensive-minded party, and everything else in-between. There’ll be battles where you’ll be skewed in a few classes and other battles where you employ a number of different class soldiers. For most battles, a simple gameplan is sufficient enough to win the day, but Tactics Ogre throws a bunch of twists with its battlefields and scenarios to ramp up the difficulty in numerous instances.

There are different approaches to tackle those special instances. In battles with an AI-controlled ally, sometimes a group of agile melee solders with one of them with a HP healing ability and long-ranged soldiers to quickly reach the AI ally. In cramped/small fields, the best strategy was the employ all outside soldiers as melee tanks, protecting the ranged/magic soldiers stuffed inside, and in a few instances, no soldier moved a spot! That’s right, sometimes the best strategy is to let the enemy army come at you, with the magic/ranged members slowly peppering the incoming enemy offense as much as they can the the melees holding them off until the time users can employ their finishing moves to end the battle.

The thing that will drive some folks nuts is that some of the battlefield and enemy placements make battle against the enemy seemingly an impossible task. There are battles where the enemy army already has a severe advantage in their placement of soldiers. Only ugly results happen in these battles. In these battles, it’s basically being able to have your party survive as long as possible to employ their finishing moves at the enemy leader. Luckily, in most battles, defeating the enemy leader usually results in the winning the battle. It gets a lot tougher if the battle requirement is to defeat all enemies, which does occur a few times. There are numerous times that I thought it the battle presented was just too challenging for the player to overcome. I overcome them somehow, but it wasn’t pretty and never intended the way it would play out. Many times of battles of that sort, a lot of luck was involved as well.

The Weight

The anchor of the game for me was surprisingly its story. It ends up being a simple fight for the cause of their hometown clan and implodes into something much bigger. There are three different paths and different endings all around the characters you recruit and how well their morale are and all the choices made throughout the game. The story goes on a huge split at the end of the first chapter, where you either had to choose to slaughter all of the village’s civilians or not. Though there are some story characters that are available to recruit in both paths, many of the story characters you meet and are able to recruit into your order can only be recruited in one path.

For my run, I chose the chaotic path (not participate in the slaughter). The story gets pretty bleak as the MC’s order is on their own confronting all warring factions in the land after the event. The MC’s sister continually gets fed up with all the fighting and actually leaves the party for a section of the game, and his childhood friend going psycho and joining up with the cause, while convincing others of his innocence of the slaughter and convincing others to join in his own personal cause. I really liked the sudden turning tides found throughout the story and it stayed emotionally dark and heavy throughout the game. Though I managed to get a good ending from my run, the bad endings sound pretty damn terrible.

Though I am interested to see how drastically different the story from the law point-of-view and the cast of characters you meet there, but I am not going to pour in another 30-40 hours to do so. I’ll read a playthrough FAQ or if someone managed to upload a Youtube run of it to get what happens in the law side of things.

Through the Grinder

I’ll be blunt on this point, but TO: LUCT is tough! Even writing about it easily recalls the headaches of the lengthy and retackling battles and constantly managing over my ever-growing group of characters in my order (I ended up with 41!). I instantly felt the grind starting from the second chapter onward and it was a challenge to oversee everything and continue to battle onward from that point. While I took the game’s intense difficulty to mesh with glum atmosphere and the wear and tear of war, it actually took a lot of tear on me. It did not help that my time with this game was running concurrent with my already insane/hectic workload at work so far this year. It made TO: LUCT’s pace seem sluggish to me because there’s so much to keep track of in everything before, during, and after each battle.

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And Finally, The End

It’s always been challenging for me to discount some of my own feelings/bias in evaluating games, especially this one. I think it is a very good game and I can see why it’s been highly regarded, but ultimately having to manage a lot of things at every turn can really wear folks out who aren’t prepared to handle the numerous trek and continuous management of your order at every turn. The battles themselves, the heart and soul of TO: LUCT, present a lot of neat but extremely challenging affairs throughout the campaign. I adore that the story maintains a gloomy, harsh atmosphere though I wasn’t a fan on how the plot was wrapping up in the final chapter before its end. I would make the similar notion on TO: LUCT with the same summary I used on Guilty Gear: Xrd on my GOTY 2014 list, where the game’s positives really shine through if you can learn all of its elements and see how it all presents itself throughout the game’s travels, story, and battles.

Would I recommend it to others? Even though I ended up enjoying the game, I’d probably would not recommend this game to others unless they have the time, some patience, and being able to not feel overwhelmed with a the game’s numerous elements of army member management, equipment and skills, recruitment of new members, and a ton of numerous challenging battles ahead. In short, TO: LUCT is one of those really grindy games that you just have to power through to persevere.

Onward to Final Fantasy Tactics Then?

Oh hell no. I hate to say this about Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, but that really pushed me to the limits where it was really affecting my enthusiasm for gaming as a means to mitigate the work stress. I’ll probably play a little bit of gaming in the meantime, but I feel like I overwhelmed myself in gaming for a good couple of months and now is the opportune time as any to step away from gaming for a good amount of time (eyeing two weeks or so). I also will not jump into Final Fantasy Tactics anytime soon, even though I would like to see the similarities and changes the direct made from TO: LUCT to FFT.

Thanks for reading.

Nothing Noteworthy – Just Work

While nothing significantly terrible happened to me and my family over the year, we did not do anything noteworthy to really mention as a highlight of the year. My parents continue to work at their grocery store business, where they continue to struggle to break even week after week. (There was a terrible incident at their business on 30 October where a group of teenagers rushed into their store and stole goods, with one teen giving my mother a swollen black eye. That was probably the lowlight of the year for the family.) My parents are still at work as I finally get a bit of a break from my job. I have tons of respect for them to keep at what they’re doing and while I am glad to give them the financial support needed to keep it running, I am frustrated that unless something breaks through, I hate to say that they’ll still be working for quite some time.

I finally reached to the time of the year that I can finally receive some significant time off away from work. I can never seem to find any time outside of Christmas/New Years where I can take consecutive days away from work without having to worry about the work not being done during my absence. Before then, work continues to be tough. I don’t think I’ll need to say more about it. Nothing terrible, but nothing terribly fun either.

GOTY 2014 List

I’m honestly surprised the reaction my GOTY list has gotten since I published it a few days ago. I expected the kudos from some of the GB_P4A group, but didn’t expect to see additional praise from other GB folks and even received a few new follows from them. Looking back, I still see some off word usage and many grammatical mistakes, so it would have been best if it was still in the oven a bit longer for peer review. I’m glad folks still liked it despite the insane length of each game’s summaries on my list.

Those that read through my list probably noticed that I sounded pretty harsh on the games on the lower end of my list, and a simple quick one to two paragraph summary was not going to be enough for me to truly express what I felt about on those games. So I went ahead and decided to expand my scope in hopes that I capture reasons why I liked the game enough to make the list, but also express any frustrations that I thought held certain games back. There was the perfect game that got motivated me to write the list as I did, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. It was a game where I liked well enough that I wanted to include in my top ten list, yet had issues that I wanted to express to say why I didn’t have as much fun with it compared to P4A in 2012.

Again, thanks for the kudos on my list.

Giant Bomb Presence

I haven’t been as invested in Giant Bomb as I was years before. Work has been the main culprit, but I’ll also include my insistence that I’d rather spend my available time diving into my hobbies, whether it’s frantically progressing and finishing a video game, listening to music, or reading manga (where I have a growing backlog of manga to read as well). I tried my best to keep up with what’s going on in Giant Bomb, but I’m finding it harder and harder to do so. I barely dug into any Giant Bomb materials, mostly settling on reading articles and shorter videos. I’m currently debating to let my gold subscription lapse as I have not been consumed much Giant Bomb content in the past two years, plus to save a bit of cash too.

I’ll do my best to keep with the goings-on in this site and continue to post anything that I wish to share on the site. The quarterly blogs help me dispose thoughts out, the GOTY list will always be an annual GB staple, and I’ll try to get my dormant “The Longest Grind” blog series running again if possible.

Q4 Gaming

Let’s just say I rushed down in getting a number of games done in the final months of this year to squeeze in and evaluate for my GOTY list. As I stated, it felt at times that I was doing this as a chore instead of having fun with it. That has to change somehow. I also need to settle down on buying/adding so many games.

Q4 Subtractions (Period: 9; 2014 Total: 22)

• Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl – 12 October
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call – 31 October
• SteamWorld Dig – 8 November
• Hatsune Miku Project Diva F 2^nd – 22 November
• Persona 4 Arena Ultimax – 28 November
• Picross e5 – 9 December
• Bayonetta 2 – 14 December
• Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN- - 28 December
• Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth – 30 December

Q4 Additions (Period: 22; 2014 Total: 56)

• Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale [eShop sale]
• Bayonetta 2
• Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut [PSN+ free game]
• Dengenki Bunko Fighting Climax
• Far Cry 4 [Best Buy sale]
• Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster [Gamestop sale]
• Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN-
• Hatsune Miku Project Diva F 2^nd
• The King of Fighters 1998 Ultimate Match [XBL sale]
• The King of Fighters 2002 Ultimate Match [XBL sale]
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds [Best Buy sale]
• Magical Beat [PSN sale]
• Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth
• Picross e5
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World [PSN sale]
• SteamWorld Dig [PSN+ free game]
• Suikoden
• Suikoden II
• Super Smash Brothers Wii U
• Tales of Xillia 2 [Gamestop sale]
• Tears to Tiara II: Heir to the Overlord
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War [PSN sale]
• Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise [XBL Gold free game]

Q4 Music

I suppose the best thing I did outside of playing some awesome games is visit a number of record stores in/around the Philadelphia, PA area. There were places that I can definitely recommend over the other.

BEST: Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton, NJ.

VERY GOOD: Long in the Tooth in Philadelphia, PA; Siren Records in Doylestown, PA.

DECENT: Repo Records in Philadelphia, PA.

DON’T BOTHER: AKA Music in Philadelphia, PA; Positively Records in Levittown, PA.

I planned on posting a Youtube playlist taking a track from 2014 music albums I really liked, but instead I’ll settle on a list.

• Alvvays – S/T
• Ben Frost – AURORA
• Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else
• Cymbols Eat Guitar - Lose
• Ex Hex – Rips
• Grouper - Ruins
• Hundred Waters – The Moon Rang Like a Bell
• Jennifer Castle – Pink City
• Lucinda Williams – Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone
• Owen Pallett – In Conflict
• Perfume Genius – Too Bright
• Run the Jewels – RTJ2
• Spoon – They Want My Soul
• Swans – To Be Kind
• Tune-Yards – Nikki Nack
• Wild Beasts – Present Tense
• White Lung – Deep Fantasy
• YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend

Manga

Some manga I enjoyed this year.

FINISHED

• In Clothes Called Fat (single volume)

IN PROGRESS

• Citrus #1 (TBD total volumes)
• Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer #1-#2 (ten volumes total)
• Prophecy #1 (three volumes total)
• Whispered Words #1-#2 (three volumes total)
• Witchcraft Works #1-#2 (eight volumes?)

Goals/Hopes/Notes for 2015

The biggest hope I have going into 2015 is that I pray my workload and schedule for next year isn’t as chaotic as it was this year. I’ll do my best to refrain from working extra hours over the weekday and going to the office on the weekends, but if shit hits the fan, I don’t have anyone else to help mitigate the workload.

My next hope is to go to an event in 2015. I had fun attending a number of music concerts, Otakon, and Summer Jam in 2013. This year, I only went to one music concert, and it was not as great as I hoped it would be. I’d love to go back to Otakon this year, as it’ll be the final year the event will be held in Baltimore, MD before it moves further south to Washington, DC the following year. I’d also love to attend a fighting game tournament in the city again if possible. It’ll be tough to find the time to attend the events around my busy work schedule, but I’ll take anything in 2015.

In the gaming front, I really want to take it a bit easier and play games more on my own pace without having to rush to finish a game for evaluation and such. I got plenty of games from years past that I still want to play. Too many games accumulated over the past several years that I want to tackle and complete. I don’t where what games I want to prioritize, but hopefully I can knock out a few older games in 2015. I don’t want to be caught up in a rush as I was the past two years (2013 and 2014) in beating current games to evaluate for GOTY stuff, especially toward the end of the year. Tagging along with that thought, if I do not finish many 2015 games, I’ll do a focused unranked list where I’ll promote a few games that captured my attention.

On the console front, I got Valiant Hearts earlier in the month on a PSN sale that I hear is a fairly short game that I’m interested in playing as my first game in the new year. After that, I’ll just have to see what game I feel like tackling by then. I expect my time on the consoles to be at a premium again, so hopefully the games I do play on the consoles are worth my time. I’ll have more time on the handheld front and will be debating on the next JRPG to play after I finished Persona Q today.

Lastly, I’ll probably fail on this front, but I want to spend less on gaming this year for numerous reasons. Particularly I don’t want to spend as much I did and would like to focus a good chunk of 2015 knocking out older games. I also want to do a better job on the music album front as well. I spent too much money on vinyl records the past couple of years. We’ll see if these goals are met or not.

Personal Thanks

It’s been a tough year, so I’m glad there are folks that are lending their time to listen/read whatever stuff I put up and continuing to keep me in their company. I don’t think highly of myself and don’t have interesting material to share with anyone. So this is my personal thanks to the folks who don’t mind me around. Thanks guys. I’ll still be around, checking in, playing with you guys whenever I have the chance to, and having some sort of discussion over something. I hope all of you guys had a good 2014 and will have a better year in 2015.

The GB_P4A Crew!

• Brodehouse
• TheFakePsychic
• Gravitypenguin
• IrrelevantJohn
• LiquidRob
• MakeMeMad
• Servantey

The Skype Crew!

• Bloo561
• Kuutochi
• Mace
• MikeFightNight

The Recent/New Followers!

• GrantHeaslip
• MajorMitch
• Slag

You Can Have Your Story, I’m Staying Classic

The highlighted item with Etrian Odyssey Untold is its new Story Mode, where the developers flesh out the story initially set from the first Etrian Odyssey with animated anime cut-scenes produced by Madhouse (I think) with voice acting dialogue. There’s even set of classes, weapons, armor, and bosses only found in story mode. I played Untold’s Story Mode for one hour before I immediately stopped. While it’s nice to have a vague story fleshed out (something I wished as I played through the final phase of the game), I was miffed that I run into the labyrinth with my guild of characters. I didn’t expect Untold’s Story Mode to go so slow at the start (lengthy introductory movie with dialogue) and locking you in with set characters. I hoped Story Mode went more like adding the story/detail as I went along, not a full-on locked in ride.

Luckily, Classic Mode fits what I was looking for in Untold, giving me the ability to compile a party of five from numerous classes and immediately run out to explore the labyrinth with reckless abandon. It’s also nice that the user interface from Etrian Odyssey IV is completely carried over to Untold, so I had no problems navigating through Untold’s numerous menus.

Streamlining the Adventure

As I wrapped up my adventure in Untold and starting to gather my thoughts on the game, I picked up that Untold streamlined/condensed some mechanics from IV as well as adding in a few new mechanics to help pacing and adding flexibility to the player in exploring the labyrinth and in battle. I was largely indifferent with most of the tweaks as I feel they didn’t significantly change how I went about Untold from IV.

I’ll highlight a few of Untold’s tweaked/new mechanics that I had the biggest reactions to from my experiences between it and IV.

Grimoire Stone

A “new” feature highlighted on the packing of Untold, it’s essentially a revised version of IV’s Sub-Class mechanic. While I love the Grimore Stone mechanic on paper, its execution in Untold falls a bit flat. IV allowed the player to assign one sub-class to their characters, allowing the character access to a limited set of skills culled from another class they’re assigned to. It’s designed to help extend use of the character with access to another classes’ skills. (e.g. Assigning a Medic a Runemaster sub-class.) However, the character is locked in with one sub-class only with its limited skill tree. Running with Untold’s flexibility theme, Grimoire Stone allows the player to choose their skills of their liking through synthesis. This sounds like a great improvement on paper against IV’s sub-class mechanic.

Floor Jumps and Drinking Water Points

The new mechanics introduced in Untold that wasn’t featured in IV are the floor jump and drinking water points. These new features caused the biggest reactions to me because it was convenient… too convenient. When a player successfully reaches a stairway to the next floor down, they’ll have immediate access to jump back to that floor at any time. On one hand, it’s nice to immediately jump to a specific floor right then and there, useful in tackling Untold’s numerous side quests. On the other hand, this circumvents any challenge the player has to endure by having quick access to a floor whenever. IV forced the player to navigate the labyrinth’s floors again to get to the desired floor. You really don’t need to any around many Adrienne Threads at all in Untold! The only times floor jump is unavailable and the need to carry at least one Adrienne Thread is when the player has not reached the stairway to the next floor on the current floor being explored.

Untold’s other new mechanic is the drinking water point, once the player finds the point, their entire party recovers all of their HP and TP. It’ll also recover all of their HP and TP even when they’re knocked out! In IV, the only way to fully recover your party’s HP and TP is to stop in the inn, which costs money. In Untold, these drinking water points makes going to the inn almost irrelevant for recovery. The drinking water points also costs no money and the player can access it as many times as they want.

Take the two together and players will have an easily accessible fallback plan whenever their party is in trouble. No need to carry Adrienne Thread or use the inn to pay fees to revive KO members and restore full health. Just jump to the floor that has a drinking water point and your party is quickly back in full force.

Losing the Grand Adventure

It couldn’t be helped the Untold is a remake of the first game, as you’ll limited to going through that game’s floors. There’s no venturing the vast different lands featured in IV, which I really enjoyed. You’re just going through floor after floor in the lone labyrinth. Sure, there’s still the signature Etrian Odyssey-long elements found in each floor of Untold (the shortcut passages, memorizing the F.O.E.’s paths and patterns, events at specific spots in each floor) and a few floors had neat designs/challenges, but I felt slightly disappointed with Untold’s floor design overall. It didn’t quite capture the exciting experience I had going through IV’s floors. Of course, it doesn’t help that I came I riding so much on my experience with IV going into Untold.

No Resistance

My biggest disappointment with Untold comes with its boss and F.O.E. battles, in that most battles against them were shockingly easy. I managed to win against a majority of them, including the final boss, on my first try. Only a few bosses managed to knock my party out the first time, and a few more made it relatively tough, but I came away flabbergasted on how easy I defeated Untold’s numerous bosses and F.O.E.s. The final boss was one of the lamest final boss fights ever, as his move set rarely pitted me in any danger and won with ease. Sadly, the toughest boss fight I fought in Untold was one from a side quest. That particular boss fight is what I loved from IV’s F.O.E. and boss fights, where every boss move really tests your strategy and patience.

It’s No IV, But It’s Still Untoldly Good

To me, Untold doesn’t come close to my joyful experiences that Etrian Odyssey IV brought last year. In spite of all the complaints I wrote about Untold in this entry, it’s still a damn good game in its own right. The developers did a great job updating Etrian Odyssey I by integrating IV’s great UI onto it and implementing some novel mechanics to ease newcomers to the franchise while still delivering on the franchise’s hallmarks in party creation, map creation, and plenty of exploration for those who played any of the franchise’s other games.

I’ll also give the developers credit in putting in so much with Untold’s Story Mode with full on anime animated cut-scenes and full voice-acting for its characters. It’s clear that this is more than a lame update cash grab a ton of the HD Collection games that were released for the X360/PS3 generation. Unfortunately, the mode just wasn’t for me. It’s not “Etrian Odyssey” in my eyes.

Recommending – IV or Untold

If you want a distilled Etrian Odyssey experience or want to ease into the franchise, I’d lean folks over to play Untold first. I feel like the development team took into account how tough and overwhelming the Etrian Odyssey franchise can be to folks unfamiliar with its games and tweaked it to help them explore with a bit more ease.

Other that really want to experience Etrian Odyssey and the grand adventure with tons of dungeons to explore with tough and engaging battles, I’d tell folks to definitely go to IV. And if IV gets tough for anyone, you can adjust the difficulty on the fly. IV was that special game that I genuinely felt like I was going out on a long and exciting adventure with its fills of tough obstacles via excellent floor design and boss battles.

Au Revoir Spark Guild

• Protector Krauser
• Landsknecht Charlotte
• Dark Hunter Hilda
• Alchemist Kula
• Medic Fiona

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Thanks for reading. I had a tough time gathering my thoughts and squeezing in time this past week to get this blog post done. I apologize if this isn’t up to par with my other stuff, but I hope it was an interesting read at least.

Summer: Working and Not Much Else

Yet again, I spent my entire summer this year working. It’s always been this way ever since I started working for my current employer. Summer seems to be a terrible time for me to take days off because I can’t seem to find any time in the months of June, July, August, and September that I feel comfortable enough to be away from the office without having to worry about missing too many important work items to take care of. Summer’s a busy season for my employer as the engineers are working a lot of hours on a number of projects they’re in task of and this year was no different. Busier employees that are working legit work on a number of projects keeps me equally as busy in reviewing project budgeting and other sorts of items.

Unfortunately, I do not have a co-worker that is my “equal” that can adequately cover for me when I was away. I was lucky back in May when I suffered my back injury that I didn’t have anything major that needed my immediate attention at the time, but I may not be so lucky if it happened on another week. While I see some of my bosses and co-workers take vacations, I continue to work in the office to take care of my responsibilities. I am doing my best to complete my most important tasks as fast and accurately as possible each month, but there’s so much work to be done under each “monthly period” that there’s rarely days in the month where I have an easier/not as hectic day(s) of work in the office.

I was also unable to attend any fun events this year. I hoped to attend Otakon (a big anime convention in Baltimore, MD) and Summer Jam (one of three major fighting game tournaments held in/around Philadelphia, PA each year) like I did last year, but was not able to work anything out this year. I’ll see if I can go next year, especially to Otakon, since that’ll be the last year that convention will be held in Baltimore before it moves further south to Washington, DC in 2016.

I did my best to rest up and try to feel relaxed over the weekends plus any weekdays off away from work (Independence Day and Labor Day) during the summer, but many times I wake up earlier that I would’ve liked as I’m so used to sleeping for only 5-6 hours and waking up early each working weekday. I’ll work on getting a bit more sleep and feeling more relaxed over the weekends and holidays over the final months of the year.

The lone highlight I did over this summer was visiting a few spots in Philadelphia on my day off away from work on the Friday of Labor Day weekend (August 29). My brother and I first went to John’s Roast Pork for lunch, which they served some pretty darn good sandwiches there. Then we hit Tea-Do, a tea shop in a Vietnamese shopping market in the city. My brother ordered some weird tea that he instantly regretted ordering. We next stopped in Beautiful World Syndicate, a store dedicate in used/old vinyl records. That’s all they sell, nothing really recent that I was able to see in store. We only spent fifteen minutes sifting through a couple of racks of vinyl before leaving and stopping into the usual record store I visit frequently to purchase records, Long in the Tooth. The final stop in our day in the city was a stop at Tea Do, a tea shop my brother liked, and ordered ourselves to tea there.

In short, I basically worked for the entire summer.

If you want to read the next section, go right ahead. Something I thought wasn't too relevant, but something I still want to share.

Q3 Gaming

It’s been a struggle for me to cull much excitement over video games this year. My gaming time has decreased as I have been less inclined to play video games on my free time. Most games that I dedicated my time to this year so far have added more frustration rather than excitement, and many of the new games released for most of the quarter. I am quite happy that I did not add many games this quarter (as well as the year to date) which prevent my already terrible backlog from digging a deeper hole. Not everything was totally bad for me in gaming this quarter, a fighting game out of nowhere and a remake of a dungeon crawler have provided periods of enjoyment out of a rough quarter.

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late

UNIEL was an expected surprise when I finally got accumated to what the game present and how it played. The game’s presentation may scream anime air-dasher fighting game, UNIEL is far from its anime FG counterparts by placing more emphasis on a neutral/ground game, smart block strings, good defense to turn into good offense, and smart decisions to gain GRD blocks to win the GRD battle to get into vorpal state. It feels like it takes best gameplay elements of Street Fighter and Guilty Gear and combines them into a very impressive package itself. Despite its barebones selection of modes and barren stage backgrounds, the game features interesting characters, catchy soundtrack, and very good netplay connections on top of its strong gameplay. My only regret is not being able to put in more time and effort onto getting better in UNIEL, but even being extremely terrible in this game, I can recognize how great the game amongst the crowded genre of fighting games.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl

I am still slowly plowing my way through Etrian Odyssey Untold, but I am enjoying what I have experienced through the game up to this point. I realize the developers want the players to play the game through the new Story mode, where they actually flesh out a story around what was already written with characters to relate and play as, full voice acting dialogue, and anime movie cut-scenes. But after playing an hour into Story mode, I didn’t like how much the dialogue interrupted the flow of the game and not being able to create my own guild of characters. Henceforth, I am playing the game on Classic mode and it almost replicates the gameplay I enjoyed so much from my personal game of the year last year, Etrian Odyssey IV: Legend of the Titan.

Many of the gameplay elements featured from Etrian Odyssey IV do carry over onto Untold, whereas your guild can create a maximum of 30 members with nine classes to choose and mix and match from. The player can create/customize their map of each floor by utilizing the game’s numerous icons and stylus controls on the 3DS’s bottom screen. Exploring the map and navigating through its own puzzles, the turn-based battle system, collecting loot to sell to attain weapons/armor/accessories/items, and completing missions/side quests/side requests to earn bonus experience.

It also helps that Etrian Odyssey IV’s user interface is carried over in its entirety here to Untold, making the transition over to Untold almost seemless. Untold does make a couple of tweaks on some gameplay mechanics from IV, which I have mix reactions to what they have tweaked. I hope to write an upcoming The Longest Grind blog entry on my experiences of Etrian Odyssey Untold once I finish it. It has not quite reach the exciting highs that I experienced with Etrian Odyssey IV, but in terms of gaming this year, it’s been plenty exciting.

Q3 2014 Additions/Subtractions

Subtractions (Period: 2; To Date: 13)

• Demon Gaze (VITA) – 19 July
• Child of Light (PS3) – 1 September

Additions (Period: 6; To Date: 34)

• Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! (PS3)
• Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (PS3)
• Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright (3DS)
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS) [Limited Edition]
• Ultra Street Fighter IV (PS3)
• Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late (PS3)

Q3 Music

While I have done a good job restraining myself from splurging too much on new video games, I have not done a good job in tune on the vinyl music album side. I made four trips to the record store and purchased a bunch of vinyl each trip. Luckily, out of the albums I did listen to, I really enjoyed a majority of them I did buy. I expect the same for the final quarter of 2014, a few trips to the record store and hauling a bunch of albums each trip. Here’s a list of albums I really liked that I acquired this quarter.

• Alvvays – S/T
• Ben Frost - Aurora
• Coachwhips – Get Yer Body Next Ta Mine
• Naomi Punk – Television Man
• Owen Pallett – In Conflict
• Shabazz Palaces – Lese Majesty
• Sharon Van Etten – Are We There
• Spoon – They Want My Soul
• Tim Hecker – Harmony in Ultraviolet
• Truckfighters – Universe
• White Lung – Deep Fantasy

The Longest Grind

I fought to write two The Longest Grind blog entries this quarter and while looking in hindsight the two blog entries could have been better, I’m still glad I was able to write these blog entries and get them out there nonetheless.

The Longest Grind 03 – Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late

I dedicated my third entry of my personal blog series to UNIEL. In the blog entry, I go in depth with the game’s major gameplay elements (neutal/ground game, smart blockstrings, defense to offense) and mechanics (GRD, Vorpal State) and how much the game stood out and impressed me despite my incompetence in the game. [LINK]

The Longest Grind EX 01

I’m a bit disappointed that I did not exactly get everything that I wanted to discuss in regards to this blog entry, but the main point that I wanted to make here still stands, getting good in fighting games is very tough. I wanted to highlight the amount of time and effort the professional in really getting nitty gritty in the game, finding optimal combos off of a particular starter, what moves are safe and unsafe, utilizing mechanics in certain situations, and making it available to the internet for aspiring fighters to acquire and consider into their gameplay. I really appreciate those who have provided the spark in fighting games and wanted to address that here as well. [LINK]

Giant Bomb Wiki Work

I did a little bit of Giant Bomb wiki work this quarter. My major contributions are creating the Arcana Heart 3: LOVE MAX!!!!! page and fleshing out the F-Zero: GP Legend page. I added in release dates to a few games as well.

Q4 2014 Items

Giant Bomb Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Tournament – October 4-5

Gravitypenguin has taken the reigns to host the inaugural Giant Bomb Persona 4 Arena Ultimax tournament held on October 4-5. Those who plan to purchase the game should consider joining in if interested, the more entrants, the merrier! A few members are giving away some nice prizes for the tournament. Those who participate are already entered to win MikeFightNight’s GB P4 ER blu-ray discs collection and PC keys provided by c_rakestraw. I’m pitching $60 USD in PayPal or Amazon to the top three finishers, while the host himself if throwing in a 2DS with Pokemon X to first place! The link below is the thread for you to post your entry on (make sure to also sign in to the Challonge page as well) and see particular tournament rules.

LINKS: Giant Bomb Thread -- Challonge

Surviving the Working Grind

I expect work to continue to be tough for most of the quarter, as I won’t have many weekdays off from work until the US Thanksgiving holiday. I may ask to take one weekday off sometime in mid-October if able. The company has added in new programs and revised how we run some processes in accounts payable and processing billings in this quarter which will be very rough for the entire company to adjust. I cannot wait for the end of the year to come, where I’ll have some significant time away from work to (hopefully) get some much needed rest and dig into some gaming. I’ll have at least a four-day weekend on Thanksgiving and using my vacation time to have an extended break from Christmas Eve to New Years.

Upcoming The Longest Grind Entries

So far, all three blog entries in my personal blog series have focused on fighting games, the other genre that I wanted to express my own personal experiences on are JRPGs. If I’m able, I plan to make one of the upcoming posts a summary of the JRPG games I’ve finished to date this year. I still harbor some strong thoughts on those titles and hopefully will be able to sit down for a period to get it down. I’ll save Etrian Odyssey Untold as its own entry as I’ll compare and contrast my experience with Untold against IV.

I am also hopeful to write a blog post on Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN- in the waning days of 2014.

A Fun Giant Bomb List

I’ve been kicking around a fun list I want to eventually want to post soon. Other GB folks probably have made similar lists before, but I hope will be fun to look through and read about if I do get around to it.

Sorting Out the Q4 Gaming Madness

I’m not sure how I’ll be able to parse out my gaming time for the quarter with the expected games I plan on getting this quarter along with trying to play older games rotting in my gaming backlog landfill. I really want to get back to playing some older games, but it seems really doubtful as I want to dig in to the new releases. Probably Q1 2015 will be a better time for me to dig into the backlog, after all Q4 stuff is taken care of… hopefully.

The Black Friday Dread / PlayStation 4?

Oh Black Friday, the damned day where retailers are actually opening on Thanksgiving for the insane folks to spend their money on supposed huge sales. In 2011, I went crazy in dealing with the crazy crowds and purchasing six games. I purchased my 3DS in 2012 on a Black Friday sale. Luckily, I didn’t acquire much in 2013 and I hope to stay true in 2014, unless Sony and retailers collude to release a PS4 holiday bundle of some sort for a good price. We’ll see as the time comes.

Northeast Championships 15?

I’m sad that I missed out on Summer Jam and I don’t have much hope that I’ll be able to attend Big E’s biggest Philadelphia fighting game major tournament on December 5-7. He’s already made some big waves by making Injustice: Gods Among Us and King of Fighters XIII free entry games to help drum up support for both games. (I believe both games are coming to an end as of community support in tournaments.) Big E also claims to bring huge support (sounds like big pot bonus) for the anime FGs at NEC15. The tournament this year should be flush with anime FGs and that’s the main reason I want to attend.

Q4 2014 Expected Game Additions

• Bayonetta 2 (Wii U)
• Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN- (PS3)
• Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd (PS3)
• Persona Q (3DS)
• Super Smash Brothers Wii U (Wii U)
• Tears to Tiara II: Heir of the Overlord (PS3)
• Yatagarasu: Attack of Catacalysm (PC)

End

Alright, I wrote too damn much now. For those who read through this thing, thanks! You can go now.

Writer’s Note: I am not an expert player in this game and some of the information that I write on this blog may be incorrect. If so, kindly mention it on the comments and I may make the corrections when I have the time in the future. The main intent of this blog is to share my personal experiences and opinions on the game while including in some game information and sprinkling in a funny snippet here and there. I hope the latest proper entry onto my (somehow) on-going The Longest Grind blog series.

Also of note – I changed my 3 August 2014 blog title entry from The Longest Grind 03 to The Longest Grind EX 01. After the fact, I did not think that blog entry correlated with my initial intent of the blog series, so I made a slight title change to notify users that particular entry was an outlier.

Without further ado, the third installment of The Longest Grind.

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Going In Blind

I did not much about Under Night In-Birth before its Japanese console release. The only thing I know was the developer (Soft Circle French Bread) also developed Melty Blood, an under-the-radar but well-regarded anime fighting game. I viewed a bit of Melty Blood footage in an attempt to brace what I was going into with UNiEL. I agreed to gameshare with a few other folks when UNiEL’s PS3 port and date was announced in Japan. (I largely agreed to the gameshare as I initially thought the game was not going to be localized to North America.) Once I finally downloaded my copy of the game and started to mash, UNiEL threw me a boxing combination that knocked me out cold. It’s definitely a game that really has its own identity, though there are some mechanics that’s featured in other fighting games.

It’s Not Plus or Minus/It’s Simply Neutral

The biggest fighting game gameplay element that UNiEL stresses is how well players play the game while they’re in neutral, or how the players handle where they stand against their opponent. This puts a ton of pressure on both players on how they plan their moves in order to gain the upper hand. The player has to quickly determine how to approach their opponent depending on play-styles and tools available to use with their character. It may take more than a couple of seconds in some matches before someone finally gains the early advantage over the other.

UNiEL’s importance on neutral makes this portion of the game element more in line with Street Fighter than its anime counterparts. I rarely had to think about spacing and being patient whenever I fought in Arc System Work’s games (Persona 4 Arena / Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R / BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma). You can’t completely go all-in unless you know you know you’re in an advantageous situation where your opponent cannot counter back. But you also cannot be totally defensive too, as there are tools where your opponent will eventually find a chink in your armor, as well being a passive penalty in UNiEL unique GRD mechanic.

Tug of GRD

UNiEL’s GRD mechanic is a unique and well-developed gameplay mechanic that adds another set of tools to the player’s arsenal, especially if they win the GRD battle in the middle of the actual battle. Players gain or lose GRD depending on how their actions. UNiEL awards players who are more aggressive with their actions, such as simply walking/running toward their opponent, and successfully landing attacks on your opponent. Players lose GRD if they generally aren’t as active against their opponent, as well as performing passive actions such as retreating. There are bits of subtle actions that either add or subtract GRD. Players can lose a bit of GRD if they whiff a throw, or attacking Byakuya’s web traps to get rid of them.

After 15 seconds, the player with the most GRD goes into Vorpal State, where their character is awarded with passive buffs for their characters and additional tools in their favor. The most apparent buff for the awarded player is the 10% damage boost they receive by winning the GRD battle. The Vorpal State player has access to Chain Shift, which has two effects when used. When Chain Shift is used, the player gains more meter. More importantly, when used correctly, Chain Shift can be used like a roman cancel/rapid/one more cancel where it’ll cancel the attack and the player can extend the combo/pressure on their opponent.

Vorpal State also carries additional effects for characters and other gameplay elements. Carmine loses less health when he uses his blood specials under Vorpal State. The player can use guard cancel without having their GRD meter broken, and other benefits that escape my head at the time of this blog.

In short, it is imperative to win the GRD battle to gain the multiple benefits that Vorpal State awards to the winning player.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Blocking

UNiEL’s GRD generally awards players who show/perform aggressive acts and punishes extreme defensive acts. BUT, UNiEL awards GRD for players who stand their ground and successfully block the opponent’s offense. Sometimes a player can win the GRD tug of war by being able to block their opponent’s offense to get into Vorpal State for the time being. Eventually the player on defense will find an opening and able to mount an offense back.

Cracks in the Shield

UNiEL also has a barrier shield mechanic that’s similar to Arc System Work’s barrier shields in BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. Shielding helps reduce blockstun (the amount of time your character is stuck while blocking an opponent’s attack) and if used in certain situations, gives the player an opportunity to counter back with an attack after shielding an opponent’s attack. It’s a powerful tool in a player’s toolbox if done successfully. However, guessing incorrectly with shield or getting thrown while shielding will result in having your GRD broken, which you cannot accumulate any GRD meter for a period of time. TL;DR - Use with caution.

Pinpoint Execution

As if understanding the numerous gameplay mechanics and their pros and cons looks overwhelming on its own, the game’s recognition with button inputs is strict, in line with Guilty Gear and Street Fighter. This is probably where one of my biggest struggles in playing UNiEL lies, unable to fully execute a proper combo or blockstring. You really have to time and execute your motions and buttons correctly or else. There’s so much going during battle that sometime I do fumble what I’m trying to do and get severely punished in return. It’s going to take a lot of tough sledding of training and battling folks offline and online to get better, if I can find some time outside of work which has been very hard to come by this year.

Taking My Lumps, A LOT OF LUMPS

If I combined my ranked and player match results, my win percentage would probably be under 5% right now. That’s right; I am extremely terrible at this game. It’s probably the lowest win percentage out of the fighting games I’ve put some time into the past couple of years. Despite my lack of success at this game, I am mostly enjoying what UNiEL brings to the table.

UNiEL’s Own Under Covers of the Fight

I am enjoying UNiEL because I feel like it culls in gameplay elements and tactics found in some other fighting games and combined it here. You have the patience/feeling each other out/good defense turns into good offense found in Street Fighter, the strings of attacks and extension with the use of Chain Shift’s rapid canceling effects in Arc System Works titles (particularly BlazBlue and Guilty Gear), while having unique mechanics of its own (especially the GRD mechanic) combined into a great fighting game product.

I was especially surprised to see many professional players outside of the anime fighting game community get engrossed in UNiEL. Evolution 2014 champions of Injustice (SonicFox) and Killer Instinct (CD JR) have been playing actively playing UNiEL. (I see them in the UNiEL pools in Summer Jam 8.) I saw Justin Wong and PR Balrog give the game a legit shot too. Flux of Marvel fame has also been actively playing UNiEL as well. My friend Foo, who I consider a damn good fighting game player in his own right, really enjoys the game too. The anime community really took UNiEL by storm and gave it a strong push when the game was released. It’s probably going to take a bit of hit in support with Persona 4 Arena Ultimax just released for consoles, along with upcoming releases of Degenki Fighting Climax and Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN-. Hopefully they’ll be folks who continue to give the game it’s deserving support and maybe it’ll pick up again once Aksys releases the localized version of the game in North America sometime in 2015 (Spring?).

Continuing Fighting the Good UNiEL Fight

Even with P4AU, DFC, and GG Xrd on the horizon, I’ll still do my best to play some UNiEL here and there, even if I am really terrible at this game. Who knows? Maybe I can get a little bit better and get a few more wins. But I hope that I can put up a better fight against my competition (primarily the other Giant Bomb duders). I hope the duders who I fought against will still play some UNiEL in the near future too.

I think they all agree, it’s a damn good fighting game.

Shout-outs to the following: MikeFightNight, Kuutochi, IrrelevantJohn, MaceX, Kaziowihora, Bloo561, and SigmaCloud. All of you for the showing what UNiEL brings to the table, all of the fights up to this point, providing information whenever possible, and bringing inspiration to me to write this damn blog today.

Thanks to everyone who read this blog post!

I have been at my current job for over seven years. Each year presents its own set of challenges. One challenge remains the same, is how to make processes shorter and more productive. In short, how can we make the process “efficient?” Efficiency has different meanings to different processes. At my job, I am given the task to evaluation all current responsibilities that I have and see if there are any ways to make it more efficient. Time is money, so I have to see if there are any areas in the long process that can be shortened or skipped over that in turn the produce can be produced faster in a shorter amount of time. It’s like taking a bunch of stuff from the top and pushing it through a filter and funnel. The end product is the process at its most efficient, the shortest process that I can utilize to produce the product numerous times over in a short period of time.

Being efficient at another thing, such as video games, is a different story altogether. Some games thrive by doing a few things well, while others showcase their greatness by showing how grand their game is. Within a particular game, there are numerous mechanics the player must account for as he/she makes their progress in said game. However, what I found in games that even finding the most efficient way to progress from point A to point B takes some time. Patience and creativity are encouraged and enforced for players to see what methods they employ to get through the game. We have speedrunners who specialize on completing games as fast as possible, but they probably had to do a lot of research with assistance with fellow runners on how to finish the game as fast as they can. That takes time.

I was inspired to write the new blog post after going through a tough stretch of work (which I’m still going through) against playing a bit of Under Night In-Birth: Exe Late last weekend. I had fun the times I played UNiEL against my friends offline in my house and against a few Giant Bombers online. At first glance, the game seems to play similar to other anime air-dasher fighters in the genre, but after getting in a few bouts, UNiEL is a completely different beast than all the other air-dasher games I’ve played to date. In fact, the game doesn’t have an air-dash like the ones featured in Arc System Works’ games. You can propel forward in the air, but you won’t go back and forth in a horizontal like in P4A, GG, or BB. Plus it’s pretty dangerous to be constantly jumping in the air in UNiEL.

That’s the least of my frustrations in UNiEL. The first tough lesson that I had to learn is getting to know the full ins-and-outs of my own character: her normals, specials, supers, combos/strings, hurtbox, etc. The next lesson is to learn the numerous gameplay mechanics of the game and mesh utilizing those mechanics with the knowledge of my character’s gameplay. Following up is learning how the other cast of characters work. What do their normals, specials, supers, combos/strings look like and how I can properly react to what they do? Of course, the biggest learning lesson is to see how other folks play their respective characters. What are the player’s tenancies with their character and what can I do with my character to counteract? It’s a ton of information to digest.

I found it fascinating and frustrating on how my many hours of work doing everything in my power to trimming processes down to its essential, while trying to expand my mind in learning a lot of the ins-and-outs of fighting games in the hours I feel happy enough to spend whatever free time I have available. It’s been tough for me mentally to grasp more of what I’ve already learned in the few hours I spent in UNiEL. My job has been pretty exhausting lately (April to May, after July 4 to now) and I have not been able to fully enjoy my time with UNiEL lately (and all fighting games this year).

There’s a lot that I had to learn at my workplace. It took me a long time to learn the numerous programs, company policies, and other crazy things that the company’s business entails. It was tough essentially getting thrown into the fire, constantly making mistakes, frustrating co-workers, vendors, and clients alike. Even though I have fine-tuned much of the processes over the years, learning to trust and communicate much more with my co-workers, became comfortable in talking things over with vendors and clients who are both happy and unhappy, and other related things, it’s been hard to keep up with everything without getting frustrated over something or just completely exhausted. Yet, there’s still a ton of processes that I can do that I can still fork over and find something to make it shorter/efficient.

I have not been quite able to fully grasp myself in fighting games ever since I found my rekindled interest a few years ago. It’s not the lack of available time that’s getting me frustrated, I constantly find myself clashing against my constant work mentality of wanting a short combos/quick, general information and fighting against exhaustion and stress. I find myself amazed in watching friends and competitive players play at such a tremendous level that they’re at, even though they all have their personal challenges to overcome. A part of me wants to continue forth, break through the walls of malaise, and feel that I can play this game with some competency.

Take for example a combo notation of the character I currently chosen to play in UNiEL, Orie.

236[B] > 3B > 4C > 623A > 5A > 5C > j.B > j.C > 3B > 214B > 2C > 4C > 214B

I would go into training mode to see how far I can get. I can already tell you at my current state that I would rarely complete this combo string in its entirety. Once I easily get frustrated, I look to see if there’s a portion of the combo string that I can constantly do that’s short, safe, and that I can constantly utilize at will. At work, this may be positive because I cut the steps that take up too much time and found a combo that’s short, east-to-use, and use constantly. In fighting games, taking a shortcut may not be efficient because maybe the string I chose isn’t safe to use at all. Not to mention that I’m missing out on a lot of damage to inflict on my opponent just because I chose to only do a portion of the combo.

Hell, that’s only one combo from a number of different combos that players have found and confirmed to use with Orie. There are numerous combos that Orie can use depending on the first attack that connects, down to positioning and use of meter. It’s not only a challenge for me to learn and successfully the noted combos in training mode, but another challenge to know what combos and strings I can utilize in the heat of battle.

That only scratches the surface in fighting games. Even a fighting game that eases the barrier of difficulty, such as Persona 4 Arena, has a ton of things under the hood that many people not in-tune with fighting games will miss. I never knew that Chie and Yu had strong okizeme games that are pinnacle to their success, or that Naoto and a SMP loop that inflicts tons of damage if the player can successfully can perform said loop. Each fighting game has a ton of things in watching high-level play that may not seem apparent to the naked eye. The goal of defeating your opponent remains the same; the means of doing so are numerous.

In spite of my own personal frustrations, I still find a lot of like in fighting games, both as a player and a spectator of the sport. I have grown a deeper sense of appreciation of what fighting games presents to the table. It’s awesome to see the community continue to grow and celebrate their biggest passion of their lives. The recent Evolution tournament held last month (July 2014) is the prime example of what makes fighting games so great. It’s awesome that Patrick reached out to Luffy, this year’s Ultra Street Fighter 4 EVO champion, to get a perspective of how he managed to overcome thousands of other competitors to win. In every game, there are tons of videos shared on Youtube, tons of major, local, and online tournaments streamed on Twitch, and websites dedicated communities that have tons on information on all the current fighting games available.

Both my job and fighting games take a lot out of me in different ways.

On one hand, I work a ton of hours to tackle a lot of responsibilities that must be taken care of in a short matter of time. No one step in the process must take longer than it should. Every one of my co-workers is tasked in getting multiple responsibilities done not only quickly, but as accurately as possible. Our company strives in getting our clients the best engineering services done quickly with the best quality of work in that short-time span, potentially saving our clients tons of money in other aspects of a construction project.

On the other hand, tons of hours are dedicated in gathering a ton of intelligence on the entire game at hand through the use of personal training, challenging folks (via tournaments, gathering, online), and utilizing intel provided by folks and the internet to mold your own fighter persona. It’s completely different from taking a ton of different things and making them into their own little printing presses. Instead, it’s taking everything that the game provides, sprinkling in lessons and tools learned from others and yourself, and blossoming that chunk of knowledge into your own. It can be trimmed at certain aspects, but nonetheless you’re still gathering a lot of information almost every time.

I will do my best to find the time to personally put forth more personal effort into being a more competent fighter. I realize it’s a challenge that’s not going to be easy to tackle, but I want to at least provide something to the folks I have come across and befriended during my time here in Giant Bomb through fighting games. It’s the least I could do for them to bring me in and constantly provide me with support as much as possible.

However, if I fail to reach that personal goal to be a competent fighter against my peers, then I hope that I do not lose my sight for the biggest product that video games have provided for all this time, FUN. As long as I can have fun playing games not only with others, but for myself, then I can get by being a fighting game amateur forever. As long as it’s fun.

Because there are challenges outside of the formidable challenges of fighting games that need my attention much more. That includes my own well-being, physically and mentally.

Thank you for spending some of your time reading my blog post.