Running an item shop is harder than most games would have you believe, especially when you’re a young girl with no business experience. In this review, The Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage takes a look at what we can learn from this sweet animesque business sim about friendship, adventure, and hardcore capitalism.
RPG
FFXIV recently released a new class into their game with their 4.5 patch A Requiem for Heroes, which was a rather surprising announcement considering we weren’t expecting another class until the launch of the next expansion, Shadowbringers, this summer.
He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet’s intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.
― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend
“Show a little more respect…
For Faerie Tales…”
-Sydney Losstarot, Vagrant Story
In this EarthBound episode, the idyllic vision of America, the death of innocence, the lost art of memorable NPCs, and more.
Cosmic Star Heroine is a combination of recognizable influences but it doesn’t let all that inspiration go to waste.
The Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage does his best to get to grips with Cultist Simulator, but gazing too long upon the Old Ones has been known to cause loosened grips…
Moonlighter asks the real questions: What happens when the lights go out in a normal RPG item shop? How do they get their wares?
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The cycle of crafting and exploration remains unbroken but is there more to Smoke and Sacrifice than the Loop?
I can assure you with utmost confidence that no magical, fire-breathing dinosaurs were harmed in the making of this video game.
The point of me writing on this game over 25 years after its initial release is not to determine if it’s a good game or not, but rather, to spark discussion on its context in the wider setting of digital play, how its heartfelt story might resonate with players across cultures and generations, what its themes are trying to communicate.
I suspect that, like me, many of you were introduced to the Final Fantasy franchise through one of the main series, numbered titles. I am certain that when people talk about Final Fantasy Mystic Quest with less-than-favorable opinions, it is because they too had that same experience.
“Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?”
-Isaiah 10:15 [ESV]
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
-Roald Dahl
“Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”
―C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Chrono Trigger magnum opus: addressing questions of interpretation, authorial intent, hype/nostalgia, if the GOAT really exists.
“Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course – the distance between your ears.”
-Bobby Jones
“Wherever he saw a hole he always wanted to know the depth of it. To him this was important.”
-Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth
In this Vagrant Story critique, we revisit one of the more challenging and inaccessible offerings from Square right at the tail end of the 90s.
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
“As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.”
– Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats
“And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it.”
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Put on your thinking caps, here comes Day Eleven and Tactical games. For the…
You know what? Screw tradition. It’s time for Day Ten and the Ahrpguhz… better…
If our Elemental Challenge thus far were a nine-course meal, then this day would…
“Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies,
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes”
– The Beatles, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
