![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
majoukoufu(Still backdated!)
Challenge #15: Talk about an unexpected joyous moment you experienced last year.
I'm going to keep it low-key and talk about some unexpected joys I got from various video games.
★ Baten Kaitos Origins: I was really, really into this ages ago, but in a way where I played it once + got so into some headcanons that when I replayed some years later (around 2016), I was shocked at how the characters in the game didn't at all resemble the ones in my memory. I felt let down and unable to enjoy it anymore, and it really informed my feelings on wildly-divergent headcanons: they're fine if I'm doing them on purpose and with awareness, but if I'm bit really hard by something, I should replay/rewatch early to get a more solid sense of everything and keep myself from building a shrine to shadows in my heart.
Anyway, years passed with me not having anything to do with BKO, and then both BK games got a remaster recently. Which I picked up, and found I once more really liked Origins! The three-character party especially gives the game a lot of ability to develop everyone pretty evenly even just in the main story. It's nice to come back to something I thought maybe wouldn't ever be able to work for me again, and instead have more fun than last time. Also less overtly joyful but still nice to have a concrete idea how to keep that second-play let-down from happening again with something else.
★ Octopath Traveler: finally got around to this, and it was an all-around fun experience that helped me clarify some elements of game design I prefer (esp. small and tightly-designed areas), but also - THAT SOUNDTRACK. Excellent. A delight from start to end.
★ Tales of in general: tbh I was really worried about this series after the past few years in general (it's been a lot of little molehills for Tales), and the death of the Rays mobage in particular was worrisome even as someone who never played it... and then we got the announcement of the remasters project! Such a relief. Hopefully over the next few years this will pull a good chunk of classic Tales games from various eras and of various game-design sensibilities back into availability. (And on a smaller level, they just recently announced they've got Eternia VAs coming in-person to the next TalesFes for the first time in over a decade!)
Challenge #15: Talk about an unexpected joyous moment you experienced last year.
I'm going to keep it low-key and talk about some unexpected joys I got from various video games.
★ Baten Kaitos Origins: I was really, really into this ages ago, but in a way where I played it once + got so into some headcanons that when I replayed some years later (around 2016), I was shocked at how the characters in the game didn't at all resemble the ones in my memory. I felt let down and unable to enjoy it anymore, and it really informed my feelings on wildly-divergent headcanons: they're fine if I'm doing them on purpose and with awareness, but if I'm bit really hard by something, I should replay/rewatch early to get a more solid sense of everything and keep myself from building a shrine to shadows in my heart.
Anyway, years passed with me not having anything to do with BKO, and then both BK games got a remaster recently. Which I picked up, and found I once more really liked Origins! The three-character party especially gives the game a lot of ability to develop everyone pretty evenly even just in the main story. It's nice to come back to something I thought maybe wouldn't ever be able to work for me again, and instead have more fun than last time. Also less overtly joyful but still nice to have a concrete idea how to keep that second-play let-down from happening again with something else.
★ Octopath Traveler: finally got around to this, and it was an all-around fun experience that helped me clarify some elements of game design I prefer (esp. small and tightly-designed areas), but also - THAT SOUNDTRACK. Excellent. A delight from start to end.
★ Tales of in general: tbh I was really worried about this series after the past few years in general (it's been a lot of little molehills for Tales), and the death of the Rays mobage in particular was worrisome even as someone who never played it... and then we got the announcement of the remasters project! Such a relief. Hopefully over the next few years this will pull a good chunk of classic Tales games from various eras and of various game-design sensibilities back into availability. (And on a smaller level, they just recently announced they've got Eternia VAs coming in-person to the next TalesFes for the first time in over a decade!)
