1) I don’t remember the exact time. I want to say somewhere around 50 hours, but I spent a lot of time in the Poke Studios (which was a total waste, avoid that crap, Lemonade and Lava Cookies aren’t worth that crap) and sometimes I’d leave the game on for an hour while I look something up.

I’m currently at 80 hours. I’m at area 6 of Black Tower. All I have left to do is beat that, link with a friend that has White 2 to unlock access to the last two legendaries I’m missing, and beat Whitetail Woods.

Nice post-game in this sucker, though. About as long as the core game.

2) Never have I met a mare with such a strong desire to cringe in discomfort.

I wasn’t the one to sing that.

3) Lyra: Well?

Bon-Bon: Use your magic, you nitwit.

4) Uh… Well, I started with Gen 1. Gen 2 was alright. But I never played Gens 3 or 4. You didn’t ask, but I’ve liked Gen 5 well enough. And I’m expecting to enjoy Gen 6 as well, when I get to it.

But to me, part of my enjoyment in Pokemon is being able to use specific Pokemon that I like.

5) Lyra: Uh huh huh huh. That’d be funny if I ever got to eat any.

Bon-Bon: Work food is for work.

1) Exactly! The rotating world map was really the worst possible thing.

That also brings up an interesting point about the differences in DW and DW:G. DW:G has sort of become what DW used to be. The pace of DW has slowed down a lot in favor of more and more enemies. After reading a bit on DW:G3, I might need to revisit the series. It sounds rad. More like DW7 than 8.

2) Uh… Skipping that other part, you do realize that a bad guy is just the protagonist of their own story, right?

3) I wouldn’t know. I don’t listen to the radio.

Okay, haha. So you may recall this post. Well, a few days ago I started playing the first Digital Devil Saga. I was sort of expecting it to just be a nice diversion. You know, until I get something else to do (like maybe a new game for Hearth’s Warming I’m expecting, but you didn’t just read that because I don’t know anything about it).

I am thirty-six hours in and I have misjudged the poop out of this game. Holy moley, is it ever awesome! There are some issues here and there, particularly when I compare it to Nocturne. But the good far outweighs the bad here! Once I finish I totes want to do another write up like I did with that Deus Ex game.

1) Uh… Not really. That sounds painful.

I went to your deviant art. The weapons and stuff was kinda cool! I’d have gone with some more diverse choices than swords, but your depictions were great!

Of course, you don’t follow me sooo… You’re probably never gonna see this!

2) I don’t have any reason to believe anything sinister going on. I figured they were just trying to sell merchandise.

What kind of unknown entity would we be talking about here?

3) I loved pretty much everything about Deadly Premonition that wasn’t a result of poor controls and navigation (in particular, that un-zoom-out-able, rotating, overworld map).

Regarding Memento, it’s not like you’re watching the movie backwards. You’re watching fairly long scenes before it breaks off and goes to the one before it. But you don’t even realize that’s what’s going on until about halfway into the movie. It just seems random. To that end, I can totally understand what you mean. That would be just confusing.

Well, for the most part. DW:G has notable differences to DW. The biggest one (after they removed the ability to fire a bow) is the dash ability. It pretty much negates any reason to ever block, which removes a layer of strategy and makes it more twitch. Not that any of that mattered in DW:8, since the AI was so dumb there’s no balanced difficulty anywhere in the game.

As far as ideas for relaxing go, here’s the best one I got.

Haha! Maybe a little soon to jump back into that one. I was thinking about these, though. Bon-Bon gave them to me for Hearth’s Warming last year and I never got around to playing them.

1) Sweet potato casserole! Woo!

Sorry about Black Friday; I went out myself. I don’t usually risk it, but I needed a new mattress. Seventy percent off and a twenty year warranty. Pretty much determined what I could afford.

2) First of all, why do you care? Secondly, how many times to I have to answer? I already said yes.

3) Lyra: Ham-Hams Unite? Well I had some issues personally, but it was an alright game. I definitely enjoyed it!

Bon-Bon: You’re freezing! Go in the other direction!

4) Absolutely! Of course, it would have been a lot more genius if collecting the words wasn’t the whole game. I mean, You don’t even use a bunch of them. Also, I feel Hamtaro and Sandy have poor characterizations. Which was a shame, because all the others were spot on (near as I can remember anyway)!

It was also missing that certain duality that the show had; switching from Hamtaro and his friends, to Laura and hers. I mean, the humans weren’t even in the game.

5) Somepony talking about a show other than Doctor Who? On this website? Unheard of.

Simple is a Blue Heeler. I think they usually call it something regional in your world. He’s beautiful, playful, smart, obedient, and very active. So very active. There is no way I could take care of this dog by myself.

Woah woah woah. Slow down. I was all on board with you, but telekinesis and aerial superpower battle? That sounds gnarly.

Did you ever play Deadly Premonition? I can’t tell if you’d like that or not. It had a lot of problems, but it’s story was flippin’ amazing. I bring it up because it also had some pretty major gameplay issues.

Did you ever see Memento? I think it did what you’re describing, but it had a reason to. It was also pretty good. But trying to play it Dragon Lair-style would have probably been terri-bad.

On the subject of games, I’m totally playing Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite.

1) While certainly a valid excuse now, griffons have been hating us since long before the fact.

I don’t personally know much about griffon culture. Gilda never talked about it much, but it didn’t sound so different. I’m sure there are ponies that do, though.

2) Well… There is a certain merit to the notion. Redirecting conversations is context sensitive. If you miss the opportunity you may not get the chance to ask about something. It’s just completely impossible to implement that notion properly in a video game. You’d have to be able to translate the available options to the player, in all their complexity, at the speed of thought. That’s why games like that needed to be made. To prove this [omitted] can’t be done.

And that’s why conversation trees are still the standard. They don’t make the most sense, but they’re intuitive. Such is the limitation of video games as a medium; just as all mediums have limitations.

3) It’s selfish, is what it is. But we all have to be selfish to some extent. When all you do is worry about other pony’s problems, you’re only being selfless. And if all you can be is selfless, then you are left without a self.

4) Wow. What an [omitted]. Uninvited.

5) No more busy than when I was working last year. I haven’t even worked in over a week; they hired somepony else as full-time. Just… A little less motivated, I guess.

1) I don’t know. I don’t really know how old Mr. Cake is. I do know that he’s around foals a lot. I mean, come on. He works in a confection shop! I’m sure his job just puts him closer to the pulse of child culture.

Didn’t mean to make you feel old! Sorry!

2) A proper strategy game gives you simple tools and lets you formulate how to use them yourself. The trick is which ones, where, and in what sequence.

The problem with Pokemon is that it gives you a bazillion complicated, interconnecting, one-shot, trump cards! I know they were bugged as a entomology museum, but the first Pokemon games were simple enough to fully wrap your head around.

I don’t know. I’m sure I’d still like the game if I played it, but that wouldn’t suddenly make that aspect (because I don’t want to call it a fault) any less pronounced. I just wish the series hadn’t taken such a Magic the Gathering-esque turn.

3) Lyra: Not just three double yous, three double yous and a period. Still stupid. I mean, it doesn’t stop spammers anyway. They just use “(dot)” instead of “.”

Lyra: I’m going to be the Demi-Fiend from Nocturne! I even got glow-in-the-dark body paint!

Bon-Bon: I was originally going to go as a royal guard, but Lyra suggested Joan of Arc instead, as something more specific. So in addition to armor I’ll be carrying around a… battle standard? Oh good, I remembered!

1) Long time Jolteon fan, here. Pin Missile, yo.

Of course, the last Pokemon I played was Silver. I think the main problem is that after G1, I played other rock/paper/scissor style games like Jade Cocoon and Nocturne and realized Pokemon was nothing extraordinary.

2) … Not sure how you expected me to respond to this.

3) I don’t think I’ve ever had peanut butter and cheese. Mostly because I don’t care for peanut butter.

4) You just don’t know what to look for. I mean, I don’t know what to look for in an aging human myself!

1) Not trying to be disrespectful if this is legit, but I’ve got a virus from a website before and it’s not fun. This seems sort of spammy so I need some evidence that I’m not going to regret going there.

2) Yeah, but medical bills can be killer. But if you can afford it I’d go. Could be something simple, but threatening as Anemia caused by dietary iron deficiency. I had that for a little while when I was younger. Felt tired and sick all the time.

3) There were plenty of games that were playable, just not a whole lot that were memorable or didn’t have superior sequels that negated their predecessors.

I do miss the minimal load times of cartage games from that era, though. Start game. Pick mode. Pick character. Start race. No load screen. No awkward pause. Nothing. Even freakin’ New Leaf has load screens.

And it’s cool. Ya just doesn’t has to call me Johnson.

4) Bon-Bon: Yeah… A shame. I mean, what mare wouldn’t want to be called Drops. Or Doctor Oops. But you can call me Bonnie, if you’d like.

Bon-Bon: And sure, I have some regular suppliers. I don’t grow anything myself, if that’s what you were asking. But I also might shop around on occasion. You know, make sure I’m not being gouged. You’d be surprised how little years of loyalty means until a supplier loses a big customer. Then it’s all, “I’m sure we can work something out.”

1) I’m sorry, Alicorn Pinkie said all that? Really? Because all I’m seeing is

2) It’s already been a week. And while I don’t support the attempt to take down the tumblr in question, that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with the anti-rape culture cause they’re working toward. Of course it’s not about taking the page down. That would be like a civil rights group saying “all we want is equal job opportunities in the field of… construction.” Stopping at a single page on a single website would be a pointlessly limited scope to operate toward, but in their theory it’s an appropriate start.

The reason I don’t support it isn’t because the cause is pointless; it’s because the action is detrimental. You can’t hammer ponies over the head with your views and expect anything out of it. The only ones worth educating are those willing to listen. And the artist obviously isn’t one of them. Neither are the followers. So this all amounts to bad publicity that potentially turns away those who may have been willing to have a change of heart.

And I could go into a lot more detail on the subject too. But this isn’t an activist page and I’m not here to change anypony’s viewpoints. I just log in to relax and keep up with friends.

3) From what I was told, Mario Kart 64 was a day-one launch title along with Super Mario 64. I will tell you that you didn’t miss much, though. I hated the N64. I would hazard to say the only thing you really missed was Ogre Battle: Person of Lordly Caliber. It, along side March of the Black Queen for SNES, were two outstanding games.

1) Got a whole list of songs!

2) Great! A few more and I’ll get a free trip to the spa!

3) It doesn’t matter. Removing something offensive might make a few ponies feel better, but doesn’t change anypony’s mind on the subject. Worst case, it’s used as a martyr to carry on the ignorant and completely mangled notions of “free speech.”

At the very least, with Equestria not having freedom of speech, there’s no misunderstood representation of it.

4) Aw, my favorite was the N64 version. Sure did play that a lot at the game store.

1) Well sure, I’ve always wanted to make a game. Just as visual medium has it’s limitations, so does writing. I’ve messed with RPG Maker tons of times. I had a really cool project I was working on once but my computer fried and I lost around 6 months of work. Heavy work. Tried starting back up on it, but motivation was just gone. It was one of those multiple perspective things where you don’t really know what’s going on until you play as everypony. The cool part (at least I thought it was cool) was that each team was going to play differently. Oh well, I swept that under the rug long ago.

Hey! I just remembered I wrote a screenplay for an original series once! Takes place on human earth in modern times, but there’s magic, but magic only started to really proliferate when the internet arose and information about how to do it became easy to access. So the dynamic is law enforcement agencies struggling to keep up order in a world where all sorts of forces, or even random civilians (both criminal and non), are racing to become “all powerful” or at least to get away with whatever they want.

Got an A on the assignment.

2) I’ve touched on this before; it’s basically a cultural thing. Know what to look for. Learn how to spot refrains. Somepony will climb a building slow enough that others can see and they’ll climb up too and we’ll all go jumping from rooftop-to-rooftop.

Don’t try that at home, fillies and colts.

3) Bon-Bon: Sure I’d count mints as candy! Unless they’re mint leaves. But I don’t count cocoa beans as candy either. I don’t think anypony does.

Lyra: I always chew gum for too long and then my jaw gets tired.

4) Yeah, it wasn’t as good as the comics, but I still liked it. And that’s awful sweet of you. I was thinking of maybe trying it out while playing either Super Mario Kart or maybe Shadowrun Return’s starter campaign again. I’m kinda curious how awful I’d do at Mario Kart these days.

So, as an addendum to what I said about Shadowrun Returns, the last “dungeon” was crap, mechanically. Still avoiding spoilers, there was nothing I could use my deck on, so that was a wasted weapon slot. And on top of that you have to carry around this gimmick gun to kill these gimmick enemies once you’ve weakened them (which you have to kill in one turn or they get their power back). So my main character only had one real weapon.

At first I thought the final boss was going to be all Deus Ex-style, where there’s things set up for you to take advantage of depending on how you built your character. But nope. Can’t debuff the last boss at all. Nothing to hack. More and more gimmick enemies spawn the longer the fight goes. And they spawn faster and faster. I couldn’t keep them under control because of how many shots it takes with the gimmick guns to bring them down. Only reason I won on my third attempt was because of a lot of lucky rolls letting me just drop her quickly (and my S rank rig was really accurate).

BUT! The story was still really cool. And the campaign the game comes with is less of “this is it” and more of “this is an example.” Because it’s not really a standalone game so much as a level editor. And to that end, it’s great! I’m positive that other players are going to make some awesome content!

Just, you know, don’t forget about deckers in your last dungeon.