Psst, did you know that November 1st, 2020 was the official 10th anniversary of My RPG Blog? Neither did I, which is why I’m posting this on November 9th. TBH I don’t acknowledge Nov. 1st 2010 as the start of this blog, because it actually started about a year and a half earlier. The Nov. 1st date only came about because of an accident that reset my blog, which is why the first 40-50 posts are all marked Nov 1st or 2nd.

When exactly did this blog start? I can’t recall the exact date, but it was a month or two before Devil Survivor came out because that’s one of the earliest games I blogged about. That put it around April-May 2009, which makes this blog roughly 11.5 years old. Wheeee! 🎊🎉🎂

I never thought I’d still be rambling away 11 years later on a blog I started out of boredom. And this is my 701st post too! That’s an average of… wait, I can do this… umm… more than 65 posts a year, or a little more than 1 per a week. I’m surprised it’s that high, because my pace has been highly sporadic in the past two or three years, and I’ve even taken whole months off from gaming. There was also that time I said I was planning to quit gaming entirely… but we don’t talk about that incident any more.

Thinking back, a lot has changed in the world since I started writing. Did smartphones even exist in 2009? I’m too lazy to Google it, but either way I didn’t get my first one until 2012-2013. It took a while longer for me to play games on it. From a world with hardly any smartphones to almost everyone having one. Even my nephew in kindergarten knows how to uninstall apps so he can install his favorite “Tom’s Gold Run.” More smartphones means more smartphone games, apps, the scourge of gacha, loot boxes, microtransactions… The gaming world has really changed.

Genres dropped, genres picked up

My tastes in gaming have changed in those 10 years as well, but not by much. The tagline still says “RPGs, SRPGs and otome games,” but I haven’t played any Strategy RPGs since Stella Glow and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia in 2017 and a failed attempt at Luminous Arc Infinity in 2019. Neither do I have the desire to do so. It’s not them, it’s me: my tastes have changed so now I favor either very simple games or more fast-paced ones, and SRPGs tend to be slow, plodding and complicated. Also I’ve played a LOT of them, so maybe I’ve just had enough.

I still play otome games sometimes, but I’ve stopped bothering with visual novels because they just don’t work for me. In fact I don’t acknowledge visual novels as games, but that’s my own problem. Nowadays I concentrate my otome gaming efforts on games like La Corda d’Oro from Koei-Tecmo, because they have the high production values, good writing and meaty gameplay I crave.

I’ve also gone off Harvest Moon entirely, even though it’s a series I absolutely loved 11.5 years ago. Again it’s not HM’s fault. It’s just that once I discovered Rune Factory which had all the farming and waifuing on top of exciting action RPG gameplay, there was no turning back. And maybe it is a little bit HM’s fault, because it’s just the same thing over and over again. There’s so much more to farming IRL, as I recently discovered when I tried to do some gardening to while away the time.

I was also a huge Atelier fan 11.5 years ago. Right now, I haven’t gone off it entirely, but… it’s getting there? ish? It’s hard to say anything negative when I’ve tried almost every game except Atelier Ryza and the spin-offs and finished most of them to boot. But I don’t feel that same fervent love for it any more. Now it’s just another RPG series I play when I get around to it. But again, I’ve played almost all the Atelier games in existence, so it’s a bit rich to be making such claims now😅.

On the other side, I’ve gotten increasingly into “casual” fare like the Picross series, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Granblue Fantasy and the late lamented Paradise Bay. I still don’t like puzzle games much, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made in Picross, from leaving half the puzzles unfinished on the DS to voraciously devouring even the massive 40×30 Extra puzzles in Picross S4. I even went straight to Mega Picross when I started S3 recently, and nowadays I’ve stopped using the hint roulette, which I never thought was possible.

I never thought I would get into action RPGs this much either. Apart from the Rune Factory games, I was still a little scared of the genre when I started this blog, so I hardly played any until Phantasy Star Portable turned my life around. Okay, not literally, but seriously it was an eye-opener. Action RPGs are FUN! The boss battles are the best! Maybe in the next 10 years I’ll venture into regular action games where I can’t grind and level up my way to victory, like Monster Hunter and Legend of Zelda. Not any time soon though – if I were that interested, I would have tried them already.

Most memorable games of the past 11.5 years

Not a top 10, and not in any particular order. Just the games that have stayed with me the longest. A “top 10 favorites” list would be ideal for this kind of anniversary post, but I honestly don’t have one. I’m the kind of person who just moves on once I’m done with a game, and I’m also the kind of person who can see the flaws even in things I really love, so a top 10… the hurdle is high. It’s easier to just write games that were “memorable” for all the right and wrong reasons.

First is definitely the Terrible Trio of Tactical Guild, Elvandia Story and Kamiyo Gakuen. 😆😆😆 Not only did I have a blast playing them because they were so bad, but they also represent an era of my life that is long past. The era where I had the time and energy to press on through crappy games and poor gameplay just for the lulz and even find joy in the chaos. Nowadays I wouldn’t even start them, and if I did, I would drop them super quickly.

Then there are the games that got a big emotional rise out of me, positive and negative. Definitely negative in the case of Sol Trigger… the two posts I did on that game are some of the most satisfying things I’ve ever written. And in retrospect I guess it wasn’t THAT bad. But again I would drop a game like that in a heartbeat if I played it now.

And now that I think of it, many of my positive and negative game memories are linked to the late developer Imageepoch. I really liked the Luminous Arc series, especially Luminous Arc 3: Eyes, Last Ranker, Criminal Girls, the 7th Dragon games. Even Stella Glow with all its flaws had fun gameplay. Almost all the games they made for other companies were great while their JRPG imprint was 💩 💩 💩 💩. But at least they tried, right?

Still on the positive side, much thanks go out to Phantasy Star Portable, which got me into ARPGs in a major way. And I still smile whenever I think of Nayuta no Kiseki, one of my top 10 games if I had a top 10.

Much love also goes to Entaku no Seito, a.k.a. Students of the Round, which is getting a localized remake known as Saviors of Sapphire Wings. Check it out if you get the chance. I’d played other dungeon crawlers before that one, but mostly third person. (Oh, and Class of Heroes. Which I couldn’t get into but maybe I should try it again). I enjoyed Entaku no Seito so much that I went on to play other first-person dungeon crawlers from Experience Inc. and even tried the Etrian Odyssey series. And I’ve been planning to try more Wizardry and Elminage games as well.

Also much love to Shiren the Wanderer for introducing me to roguelikes, though I quickly discovered that I prefer rogue-lites. As far as quality and depth goes, the Shiren games stand head and shoulder above other games I’ve tried in the genre (which aren’t many, TBH), but I still think fondly of the easier ones like Dungeon of Windaria and Dramatic Dungeon Sakura Taisen. Speaking of which, I really enjoyed playing the first three Sakura Taisen games as well.

Oh, just remembered another game I absolutely loved: Shepherd’s Crossing 2. I played it 3, 4, 5 times? And wrote several posts about it. I want to play it one more time before giving the DS away. I thoroughly enjoyed the gritty simplicity and casual brutality of the game. Too bad the series never went anywhere.

Thinking… thinking… many other games come to mind. I remember a lot of disappointments as well – titles I started with high hopes that quickly flagged as the game dragged on. For example, compare the first, second and final posts on Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Or the first, second and third on Tokyo Majin Gakuen… Plenty of other games went through the same treatment, but these are the ones that stand out the most for how much they let me down.

Man, I had a lot of time and energy in those days. I was wondering where it all went, but maybe it was all drained out of me by mediocre games like those two. I may have said it before, but very bad and very good games are easy to play and easy to write about. It’s the average crud that wastes your time and gives nothing in return.

What else… Oh yeah! I also remember playing Ore ga Omae wo Mamoru and thinking I should try more Metroidvania games. Then I tried Aria of Sorrow and got my 🍑🍑🍑 handed to me after a couple of hours. And that was the end of Metroidvanias and me.🤣 In retrospect Idea Factory may have been on to something when they tried to create dumbed down Metroidvanias for a less experienced audience. Hmm.

A final very special shout-out goes to La Corda d’Oro a.k.a. Kiniro no Corda 😍, because it’s the only game that actually changed my real-life behavior. It made me join the church choir and take up the piano again after years of not playing, just by reminding me of how much fun making music can be. I even flirted with the idea of buying the violin this year, but in the end I bought a guitar instead.

Finally, a big thank you to all my readers!💖

Thank you very much to everyone currently reading this! Thank you to everyone who has ever stopped by my humble RPG blog. I started writing for my own self-satisfaction, but before I knew it people were actually reading my ramblings. And commenting on them! And putting in up with my flaky nature. One day I’m playing Game A, then next moment *toss* it’s dropped and I’ve started Game B, and then after that I say I’ll try Game C, but instead I start D only to drop it… I honestly get tired of myself sometimes! So thanks for all my patient readers!

I don’t dare speculate on what the coming years and months will hold. I’m just grateful to God to be alive and to have the time, health and money for gaming even after all these years. All we can do, especially these days, is take things one day at a time. But it would be lovely to have 15th Anniversary and 20th Anniversary posts, wouldn’t it? Let’s pray it happens. In the meantime, it’s back to my usual games. See you guys next time!