Bodysuit 23 #699

And a Madison centered chapter begins! Been struggling to start anything new anime and video game wise for the past while, partly due to depression. I'd come home from work and not feel like doing much, either watching video game centric documentaries/retrospectives or putting on something I've watched before, only to browse reddit as I do so. I've also been super hesitant on buying new games, what with wanting to save money, and the fact that I have 4 years of playstation+ premium thanks to that loophole Wario64 posted awhile back to get it for cheap. There's a shit ton of games on the service, but at the same time I look at em all and go "eh, don't feel like it." I was like a picky eater, going "I want a game that doesn't require much brain power to use so I can relax while playing, but also be engaging enough with some sort of story. But also I don't want some long ass intro that bores me to tears. I don't want to have to engage with learning new systems and the like, but also don't want to have to necessarily play the game either, but I also don't want to be only watching and doing nothing." Stupid, I know. So I wound up starting Wild Arms, the 1996 RPG on the PS5, which has savestates and a rewind feature. And that ticked all the boxes! You can set all the characters to AI control during battles, so I let the AI handle fighting for me, while I take control to move around and solve the dungeon puzzles and interact with NPCs. It's an older RPG, so there's not that much text and story dumps you have to slog through to progress. If something fucks up during battles, or if I go down a hallway in a dungeon that dead ends and need to backtrack, I rewind! And bonus, it being from the 90s, it scratches that style itch I have fondness for! As for complaints, I guess the story feels a bit bare bones partly due to its age? The trio of characters get together simply because one of them needs to talk to the others and goes "Can you partake in a job with me?" "Okay." And off they go. But to be honest, that's the sort of swiftness I want at the moment. The game gets going right as you start and keeps a steady pace all throughout. Other complaint is: for a Western influenced RPG, the world doesn't feel very Westerny. One of the intros starts in a very Western style small town, only for you to arrive at a medieval castle, and feels closer to your average medieval fantasy RPG with character designs lifted from a western. The music in the intro is really nice, too.