9 days off the internet, with Mom
Speaking of the Holidays, let’s talk about the holidays. My holiday was characterized by three things: visiting with family, driving in winter conditions, and Final Fantasy 3 for DS.
This may be a blog, but that’s no excuse for inflicting my family conflicts on you. For completeness, however, these two things sum up the experience nicely: 1) being told to go to church to meet a nice girl, and 2) being made to wear a blazer and slacks to church. Did I mention that I’m not Christian? :( But hey, it’s mom–I didn’t drive a thousand miles to get in a fight.
And it’s still nice to see the family. More important, I managed to put in over 20 hours of Final Fantasy 3 on the DS. Hooray, time alone with FF3!
It’s refreshing to play an old school console RPG again. None of that linear path mollycoddling like in the new games. You talk to some people, they tell you their current dilemma, and you have to figure out where in the world you should go to get the things you need to un-dilemma-ize them. Granted, the plot itself is still quite linear, but you’re left on your own to explore the world and find the dungeon entrances. And with random encounters, exploring is the grind. When I was younger I wasn’t aware of this, but it does take some of the pain out of endlessly fighting the same four creatures.
So, yes, it’s a bit dull and repetitive, but it’s not a bad grind. Plus, the FF kids are so cute in their different job outfits. I suppose it was inevitable they’d eventually make a game where the outfits are the only point of the game. (Guess which FF I’m referring to!) And then on the way home, they closed the roads. So, after a brief experiment with driving a front-drive car in white-out conditions, during which I found myself chanting “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die”, I ended up sharing the only available room with “Steve” at a hotel in the middle of nowhere (or Nebraska) …playing more FF3. What would I do without the DS? (What do you mean, “read”?)
