Didn't head into work on Friday due to gastro distress, and as it's only just beginning to fade now, I'm optimistic that tomorrow (President's Day, and thus a government-employee holiday) I may actually do things worthy of reporting.
Oh okay, I dug out my Playstation yesterday, schlepped over to Funcoland and snagged a used copy of Final Fantasy VIII to help while away the gurgling hours. This is my first in-depth experience with a console RPG, and seldom have I run into anything so self-consciously impenetrable. An example: in order enable something as basic as the ability to drink a healing potion in battle, I need to 'junction' a 'GF' (guardian force) to the character in question, then manually select the abilities I want (which are unavailable until said GF is junctioned) like 'Item,' 'GF' (again), 'Draw,' and/or 'Magic' ('Item' is the ability in question, allowing use of things during a fight). This effectively builds the menu of options I have while fighting for my life against the demons and bad guys of the FF8 world; cool tech, but God, the terminology...
I'm sure someone somewhere at Squaresoft knows why I need to forge a spiritual link to Shiva or Quetzalcoatl (no kidding) before I can snag a bottle off my belt in battle, but hey, that's how they made the game, and it's sold gajillions of copies, so I suppose I'm just picking nits.
-Rich
No comments:
Post a Comment