Ghibli Goodness

Ni no Kuni is a deceptively challenging game. I wasn't expecting this much resistance from a game that hands out tutorials like candy on Halloween. The game constantly explains the most basic concepts of a JRPG from healing to saving, yet, the regular battles are kicking my ass.

I was thinking that the best time to rush through a JRPG is in the beginning since catching up is easier later on when the enemies give out more exp, but I've been forced to grind. I'd almost forgotten this is a Level-5 game. It's difficult when I can't even run past most enemies. They catch up in a matter of moments, so it's either fight them head on or let them ambush me.

As much as failure frustrates me, it's the only way I can learn and master the game's mechanics. Ever since I died mere steps away from a save point which would've restored all my health and magic, I've become much more aggressive when it comes to switching between familiars and taking advantage of my abilities. In a way, I had a breakthrough and I'm now exploring the limits of the battle system.

Something similar happened in Tales of Xillia in the battle against Muzét. All of sudden, I'm forced to learn how to manually position myself against enemies when I just semi-auto'ed my way to victory before. That's still the hardest boss fight in the whole game for me because I leave all the healing and item management to the AI. 

While it's in my best interest to dial down the difficulty if I want to clear my backlog as fast as possible, my gamer pride won't let me. It looks like I'm going to need more than two weeks and a half to complete the game at this rate. I blame the NBA playoffs for my slow pace.

Aside from the challenge, Ni no Kuni is a better Kingdom Hearts than Kingdom Hearts since it deals with parallel words and matters of the "heart" without the convoluted nonsense that plagues KH. It's been a while since I played as a kid. It's a nice contrast to all the killing and cussing I do in BF4. 

If the game didn't force me to grind so much, I'd like it a lot more. Hopefully, the curve evens out a bit because I've already died more in normal battles than I have in the entirety of Tales of Xillia, and in Tales, I only died because of a BS full party petrify.  

I'm enjoying it so far and it's definitely testing me. I just hope the game doesn't throw a huge wall at me later on.

Remapping

Lately, my tinnitus has been driving me nuts. I've decided that enough was enough and began the long process of tinnitus retraining therapy. I'm not using any official program or outline. This is self-training through intuition.

The goal is to reshape my perception until the constant ringing becomes something I ignore on instinct. I achieve this by focusing on every other sound except the tinnitus. It's one of those things where the more you think about it, the worst it gets.

It is incredibly difficult to change my thinking, and I have a bad habit of making sure that my tinnitus is still there. I can go for short stretches without noticing, but then I think about it just as soon as I forget. My obsession keeps it there and makes it worse. The more you tell yourself not to think about it, the more you think about it.

There's two parts to my therapy: I have to control my emotional reaction to the condition, and I have to train my brain to focus on other sounds. Early results seem encouraging, if a little inconsistent. I've only done this for one day so far. The key component is to cut down on the time spent worrying about it.

Let's see if this makes life any easier.