video games (re: m150)

m150 wrote in his post about video games:

Fast forward today, I'm still fascinated by online communities and virtual worlds, although I don't take the time play games so much. The last few days I did though. I tried a game called "aberoth". From an art standpoint it looks like a mix between Ski Free and The 4th Coming: 8 bit pixelated art, just the way I like it. To my surprise, even though the game is more than 10 years old there are still players in there. There's a tavern, a bartender, and there's even a "drinking" skill. So dear reader, let me know if that's a game we play and who knows, maybe at some point we can kill some orcs together!

I haven't heard of Aberoth before, but I don't think I'll get into it because I don't want to get involved in yet another MMORPG. As it is, I'm tempted to renew my Final Fantasy XIV subscription for the upcoming ENDWALKER expansion, but I've still got a few single-player games I haven't quite finished yet.

What about you? What games do you currently play? How do you find time to play?

I'm currently playing the remastered edition of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. It's an existential horror RPG; it begins with the end of the world and puts the player in the position of having to make sense of an unborn world and guide the creation of a new world by choosing an ideal to support. Your only allies are the demons you bind into your service. It predates Pokémon, but it's basically existential Pokémon for metalheads, mythology geeks, comparative religion students, and edgelords.

MegaTen is also the main series that spawned the more popular Persona franchise.

My wife and I played the original US version (with Dante from Devil May Cry) back in 2004, so for us this is a trip down memory lane. Of course, the DLC dungeons where you can grind for experience-granting grimoires is easily abused. :)

I also have the remastered SaGa Frontier, where I've finished five out of eight campaigns (I have Riki, Blue, and Fuse left), and I also have the remastered Nier: Replicant. I had played the former when it first came out, but I had missed out in Nier back in 2010 and got it because I had loved Nier: Automata.

Yeah, I play too many JRPGs, and my science fantasy saga Starbreaker pretty much started out as a Final Fantasy/MegaTen/Michael Moorcock/Blue Öyster Cult pastiche.