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And so it came to pass that my first completed game in the grand old year of 2015, was Fantasy Life. Do not be of the mind that just because I got it for Christmas, it’s somewhat short. No, somehow in just over a week I’ve crammed more than 27 hours into it. In fact, since my last post about it just 5 days have passed and 25 hours of game have been played. And that’s just on one of the many lives available to play.
That’s the story complete, then. The world saved, every region of the planet united, and The Power of Wishes realised. Thankfully, you can still continue playing after the end, so I did for a bit in order to become a Master Paladin and level my character up to 31. Clearly there is a lot more levelling still to do, as most of the dragons roaming the map would appear to still be indestructible. With two able fighters as companions, I barely managed to scratch the blue one on the snowy mountain before my healing items were severely depleted and I had to run away with my tail between my legs.
On I went then, picking a new role for myself – a tailor. It could not be more different to being a Paladin. Instead of wandering round finding monsters to smack and performing deeds of derring do for a tall man with a ridiculous moustache and the shiniest of armour, you pick flowers and buy material to sew together and make clothes in a Cooking Mama style mini-game. It isn’t as fun as being a soldier, but then, how exciting could they have made tailoring, realistically? It’s impressive how totally distinct two game styles have been used in the same game, though. I wonder how the other lives fare?
10 years ago today, on the 1st January 2005, I posted my very first Gaming Diary post. Back then, I was using Blogger and it uploaded posts via FTP to my own server when I published. After a few years, Google decided to discontinue this ability, leaving me with three options: give my domain name to Google and continue with Blogger, change to a Blogger or Blogspot URL and continue with Blogger, or cut the cord and import the lot into a shiny new blogging platform called WordPress, which I had installed on my own server.
I chose the latter, pressed the import button, and crossed my fingers.
It worked! After a very long and somewhat scary few minutes, my Gaming Diary was copied over to WordPress. Then I realised I’d made a mistake in the configuration and the post formats or something were not correct, so I deleted it and tried again, this time with the correct settings. Then it was all working how I want it, and, some wonky upgrades notwithstanding, it has remained that way ever since.
Unfortunately, my very first two posts on the old Blogger were lost to the internet aetherial plane during testing (I accidentally told it to move, not copy or something) before the import, but I do remember they were both about Anarchy Online. Remember that? It was my first – and only – foray into that sort of MMORPG, and signalled pretty much the end of my time playing any sort of PC games. Still, my third ever post still exists here, about the lovely Pikmin 2 on the Gamecube. Back when Pikmin 2 was a current title. That’s two whole generations ago! How time flies.
Over the years I’ve blogged about so many games. Hundreds of them. Just taking into account those I’ve completed takes the number up to 474. That’s over 47 games a year! There are countless more I never completed, including Anarchy Online, and so many demos. I’d be surprised if I hadn’t covered over 1000 titles, probably much more than 1000.
In recent years I’ve posted less frequently, and included more “roundup” posts. Perhaps this was due to lack of time, but I’ve tried to make up for it by writing in more detail about games in the “completed” posts. So quantity of posts may have dropped, but quality and length have hopefully increased. F’nar.
Thanks for reading, and, if you managed to do so for the full ten years, blimey. What the hell is wrong with you? Here’s to another ten!