The backlog must be conquered, lest it conquer me.
Dragon Quest II (Switch)
"Damn Grandpa ain'tcha already made a half dozen posts about Dragon Quest II," you say, rudely, uninvited, scrawled on a brick and hurled through my kitchen window. And yes, I have! But I'll make it quick, after a long preamble!
I am bad at games, yes, but I am especially bad at RPGs. Stats! Buffs! Debuffs! Grinding! Points of no return! Points where you gotta return but I forgot because I was supposed to remember to come back 30 hours ago! They're hard!
And I think in that way, Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest II have been real good appetite whetters for getting into the genre. Both are about as primitive as can be (though I'd argue some of the stuff you gotta do in 2 is wildly ambitious and insanely clever, if not devious!), characterizations are paper thin (the prince of Cannock is weak and goofy, the princess of Moonbrooke is sad but brave given the circumstances, and the prince of Midenhall, well, he must, so). But that's fine!
The flavor dialogue of the NPCs manages to do so much with so little. You get a feel for each town, and what they're about, as you walk around and talk to folks. And for as simple a game as it is, there are a lot of factors that get taken into account depending on how you play (you can, or so I've read, finish the game when the prince of Cannock is incapacitated with a curse near the end of the game, after which he runs in extremely depressed that you were victorious without him).
The back half of the game is a real bastard, and I doubt I would have gotten through it without the walkthrough I found that gave some general directions (and some more specific ones, particularly for the cave to Rendarak at the end of the game).
People usually peg this one as the worst in the series, which is thrilling to me, because I loved it. Only up from here, baby! Can't wait to play the next one, uh, whenever Dragon Quest III HD 2D hits, or when I finish Tears of the Kingdom. Whichever comes first.
Bowser's Fury (Switch)
It took me a minute to realize that the end game pretty much railroads you into doing the final boss fight with Bowser, only to rub in your face that you only got half of the Cat Shines, and you better get back in there and get the rest.
Honestly, I'm kinda torn on this one. The parts where you get to play it are rad. The puzzles and obstacles are as good as any other 3D Mario game. It's a nice marriage of the 3D World gameplay with a touch of what Odyssey did. And hey, Bowser Jr. is kind of a cute and fun companion!
But damn did the whole, uh, furious Bowser part of Bowser's Fury gets old, fast. Rushing to get a Cat Shine to enable a lighthouse, or the occasional part where you fight back...it's fun the first few times. After that, not so much.
So of course when you load into the post-game, Bowser Jr. tells you that Bowser is mad again, and you gotta get the rest of those shines! 50 more! And he'll get mad and it'll rain and you'll have to fight him again!
And...nah. I think I'm good. I'll save that rainy day shit for a rainy day myself when I want to have a good time and suddenly get pissed off by mandatory timed boss sessions.
Anyway, RIP to these posts. Tears of the Kingdom hits Friday, and if it's anything like Breath of the Wild, it's gonna sink its claws into me for 200+ hours.
I mean, I'll play Fortnite and some stuff in the meantime, but...Zelda...