I dub this date as Dragon Day to commemorate the time I devoted to games with dragons in them. I played a lot of D. Dogma (Dragon's Dogma for long). At first, it didn't grab me, but I stuck with it, and I think I'm finally in its grip.
The game reminds me of Oblivion or Skyrim--except in third-person, with good animations and decent combat, and a NPC pawn system. I guess the similarities end with the huge overworld, open-ended quest structure, and the propensity to stack inventories with useless shit.
Since those Bethesda RPG's do nothing for me, those shared qualities irk me here too. For one, I can't stand the generic narrative. The biggest problem with these "create your own character" RPG's is that it forces everybody in the world to react to you in the most generic way possible. My name "Jomatto" doesn't mean shit if everybody calls me "Arisen." My gender, color, or anything doesn't matter in the least. And I look like a mute fool during the cutscenes.
The silent protagonist approach needs to die in a fire. That shit don't work when everybody besides you is fully voiced. I'm also not a fan of the faux middle English where aught's are added where aughts do naught. Is there a reason for everyone to speak like they get a stick up their ass?
I'm tired of swords and bows and high-pitched squeaky goblins and other standard fantasy fare. Although, I was reminded of Lord of the Rings in a good way when fighting goblins and a cyclops atop a caste wall at night. That was a great scene. Between Game of Thrones and countless other fantasy games, the genre's played out.
The day-night cycle, while cool, is aggravating as hell because night is deadly and it means I'm waiting for day 50% of the time. I hate that quests are available early when you're in no shape to actually undertake them. They point to some godforsaken part of the map that's blank and you'll probably die long before you even reach halfway. Quests that depend on time of day means you'll have to use inns often to advance time which means your perishables will perish even faster.
Inventory management is a pain in the ass because it affects your speed if you carry too much stuff. You can distribute items to your pawns but that's just a hassle. I should be concentrating on kicking ass, not messing around in menus.
Honestly, there's a lot of things that annoy me but I must endure. Even in this mess of problems there is redemption: fun.
At night, I decided to put on an oldie but a goodie: Spyro the Dragon. Compared to Crash, it's much more soothing with relaxing glides and gem collection. I'm trying to get 100% on every stage. The level design is something else. It's more about gliding paths and reaching "unreachable" areas rather than the strict timing-based obstacle platforming of Crash. I needed something like this, especially after wasting hours on the same goddamned checkpoint in Dragon's Dogma. It's something light, breezy, and fun.
In the wee hours of morning, my younger brother spotted something crazy on the walls: a huge ass Australian-esque spider. It was obscenely large by household standards. That creature belonged in the wilderness, not a house. It wasn't a daddy long legs, it was a full-bodied hunter. Since it was on his side of the wall, my brother was reluctantly compelled to take it out. He rubberbanded a napkin on the bottom of an empty water bottle and crushed it with all his might. He was totally freaking out because the spider wigged out in its death throes. Talk about a nasty mess of tangled, broken limbs.
/eventlog
