Gustavo

Initially, it seemed like my journey through Trails in the Sky was going well, but, like a lightning strike whose origin I can't recall, the urge to clear my backlog took a slightly different turn - I felt the need to boot up Dragon Quest XI. I found myself thinking that it was a break from the journey I had set for myself, only to realize later that it was actually a continuation, because, unknowingly and with no clear intention, I chose to save this game from the oblivion of my mind. So, what I find myself pondering now is - is the backlog a list of games you want to play, or is it a repository of expected good experiences that reside in your subconscious? The first option seems like a more "disciplined approach," but undoubtedly the second one feels more natural, more organic. So, to be honest, I don't feel comfortable answering that definitively right now.

So, there I was on the weekend, with my 30-hour playthrough ready to add another 30 hours to it, but then suddenly, 10 hours later, the thrill was gone. In desperation to get back on track, I downloaded Nier Reincarnation, Persona 3 Reload, and 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, just to see if I could recapture that feeling again, even if it's for another 10 hours, but none seemed to grasp my heavily competitive mind space.

Clutching onto that feeling once again, I came to a resolution - I need to give my brain the pleasure of finishing a new release. This will definitely put me back on track - so I bought Stellar Blade, which hasn't arrived yet, so I don't have the answer if this will work by the time of this writing. Now, this is where things will get really interesting - I don't really have this answer? Of course I do, the answer is simple, it's not going to work. I mean, yeah, I can finish Stellar Blade, but how does this relate to tackling my backlog after that? What does it even mean to tackle a backlog?

Today I was taking my dog for a walk, trying to think about what I was feeling and why. The thought started with - Why does it feel so good whenever I'm playing a game that I really want to play? - The answer, at first, was simple - Because I'm doing something that I want to do -. The next obvious question is - So why do you keep pushing things that you don't want to do? - the answer was no less than a strange one - Because I want to want to do them -. Thinking about it now, it doesn't make a lot of sense, to keep pushing things to see if you will want to do them, just to realize, hours later, that you don't, and, trust me, I have this proof over and over again. So, the last question is - why don't I want to do things? And for this one, friends, I really don't have the answer, and I don't know if I'm ready to think about it.

It's night, and Estelle is waiting for her father. Apparently, there's no mother. Suddenly, he appears with a gift for her - a boy. This boy was found on a mission, and when he wakes up, he's mostly worried about the safety of this family, saying that he should be left behind to die.

Fast forward some time, and these three are living like a family, but a "different" one - a soldier, Estelle's father Cassius Bright; no mother; an adopted scholar son, now named Joshua; and our main character herself, a charming young girl who's very bad at school and wants nothing else than to swing her staff.

This is the premise of Trails in the Sky. It was pretty interesting to me at first glance, mainly because I know that this will turn out to be a huge series, and it's always nice to see the "humble beginnings." With the benefit of foresight (because objectively I'm from the future), I can start catching the clues that will lead to this game turning out to be a political war drama.

What an interesting perspective it is to know that if this wasn't a game from my backlog from basically 10 years ago, meaning, if I didn't know that there would be 14 games after this one, I could have thought that this "humble beginning" might just be another PC or portable JRPG where I would end up saving the world from another cosmic force in 40 hours of gameplay.

So, generally, I feel that there's a lot of extra weight in knowing what this game will turn out to be. To be honest, I started this backlog quest afraid that not having a specific experience when I was younger would somehow detract from my overall enjoyment. But it's quite the opposite; knowing this, I'm thrilled to see how these simple events will turn out to be part of such a big story chaos. And there's more: knowing myself just a little as I do, I'm almost sure that I would have given up on this game back in 2004, so I'm glad to give it a shot just now.

So, this probably started 20 years ago and there's no way it will end in this lifespan.

Building on this idea, I'll continue by asking you all a question - is there any experience that you feel like you should have? Because I feel like there's a dilemma behind every backlog - why do they exist? Why do you feel like you need to experience something that wasn't part of your life? Can it become a part of your life now? Will it feel the same way it's supposed to be? As I expect it to?

So, I don't have the answers to these questions, and that's why I will document my journey through my gaming backlog. To see and to tell, especially to myself, if this urge to experience things that weren't part of my life will pay off in the "end".

So, if someone is thinking that I don't have a good plan for that, you are mostly right. One thing that I learned in life is that meticulously crafted plans tend to not go well because you will make so many slips that the whole thing can appear to be pointless. So, for now, the plan is to tackle the first game of one of the longest franchises in my backlog, which, until now, I haven't played a single piece yet - Legend of Heroes - Trails in the Sky.

The Trails Series is a series by the developers Nihon Falcom, a very niche but philosophically strong team from Japan, also known by their other long-running franchise - Ys.

They started in 2004 and until now, 20 years later, released basically 15 titles divided into 4 story arcs. Since its first release, only a few years could not see a release of a Trails game. So, this journey tends to be a long one, if I can continue to see a point in doing it.

I'm planning to share my experience through every weekly playthrough, and I'm excited to try to answer all my internal questions as I learn new things and enter a more deep state of mind about those same issues. I hope some people can see it, but I'm more than okay if this stays a journal to myself.

The Dragon's Dogma 2 drama has been unyielding - whether it's outrage over misconceptions about its monetization strategy, anger at its "lazy developers only including one save file," or the Dragonsplague being a "game breaking mechanic" by players half-paying attention to tutorial prompts, every single thing I have heard about the game from The Discourse has been negative. Heated. Aghast that such a product would have the audacity to exist.

And yet playing the game I find it's more or less exactly what I expected - a poorly optimized but otherwise sprawling title that merges both Japanese and Western traditions of CRPGs with an engagingly deep combat system, lots of actual expressive space, a ton of work on its Pawn NPC system, and a lot of friction that pushes back against players in the best possible way. It's not without its flaws and frustrations (good lord, the framerate hit in Vernwroth. And if I have to hear about how my entire adventuring party is women one more time I'm gonna lose it). But, broadly speaking, I'm having a wonderful time with it. It's surprised and delighted me several times over the few hours I've explored its world.

Which is weird, right? The discourse is nothing but how much this game sucks, but it's all pretty thoroughly disconnected from whether the game is any good or not.