The Bog

Died on literally the last bit of the ultra-final-uber boss of Octopath Traveler (had the 2nd phase down to only the very last piece standing), though it's honestly surprising I got that far since for some reason I set up my parties completely ass-backwards from what I intended to and also forgot to unequip stuff like, the skill that decreases random encounters. I fuck up menus sometimes, I dunno why. Something really satisfying about this combat system and I probably have a gigantic analysis post about it in me somewhere.

Me enjoying the combat system is probably unsurprising, given that the main reason I started playing this game in the first place was that I periodically poke at making a game in RPGMaker MV, and periodically I would have an idea for a mechanic and go, hey I should look to see if someone's already made a plugin that does that. And practically every single time I found one it was replicating something from Octopath Traveler. So I was like, well...I guess I already think this game has some good ideas, lol.

I look forward to getting to Octopath Traveler 2 (even though ALAS Cyrus is not in it) sometime in the next century, but my next big RPG is pretty much going to have to be Final Fantasy 2, Live a Live, or Unicorn Overlord. FF2 because it's the one I've never played and features my favorite RPG character type, a coward; Live a Live because as someone old enough to remember RPG fandom in the 90s it is completely insane to me that I can just go purchase a copy of Live a Live in English literally right now whenever I want; or Unicorn Overlord because I'm very excited that Vanillaware of all studios decided to make a spiritual successor to one of my favorite games of all time. Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen on the SNES is IMO an incredible game that got completely overshadowed by its big sister Tactics Ogre, which I've always been sad about because it's very fun and there really aren't any other games that play similarly that I'm aware of. Vanillaware I just love, their stuff always looks like I thought video games would look in the future when graphics Got Better in some nebulous way -- like a moving painting. I'm also pretty fond of lavishly illustrated food and necromancer ladies with enormous boobs, two things that seem to be Vanillaware specialties.

Anyway, I thought it was funny that when I beat the first half of Galdera, Cyrus was like "You should have studied harder!", like. Imagine saying that to Satan himself. Iconic honestly. No wonder a bizarrely large portion of his storyline revolves around how everybody wants to fuck him, which also incidentally has to be one of the funniest RPG writing decisions of all time despite not actually being a joke per se, probably up there with including a scene in FF4: TAY where Edward sets Kain on fire.

Getting to be a month on in FF Kiss Battle and I still have stuff I wanna post, and I already posted three things, which is like 300% more things than I posted all last year that weren't for Nonconathon. So, that's good, I guess. Also started writing a thing for my own prompt and then 2000 words in realized I'd never actually posted the prompt. Oops.

All that's left of this cosplay for the con next week is the wig. I'm super nervous about styling wigs because, you know, they don't...grow back, if you cut them. And I'm so bad with anything hair related, styling-wise.

I also forgot to get spirit gum REMOVER for the elf ears, just the adhesive, so...YOLO, I guess. The ears are comically huge but that's a feature of the character and hopefully it'll look cute.

I am like SICK with nerves though. It's been so long since I've cosplayed and the outfit isn't as accurate as I could make it (I am just handwaving the shoes and I genuinely just skipped the embelishment on the back of the jacket. I did this with my previous cosplay too, funnily enough, but that character was also wearing a scarf that completely obscured the design unless you happened to be standing in such a way that the scarf fluttered in the breeze) and I'm just. I dunno.

I've posted essentially this exact same complaint a million times but it keeps not going away.

Me and my friend are going to Omega Mart before the con though and I'm ultra hype about it. Omega Mart seems like the distillation of all the stuff I like about theme parks but not attached to a monolithic corporate IP behemoth. There's something about fictional environment crafted in real life that I just love -- I get SO excited about even the shittiest walk-through haunted house (although I AM sad that so many of them are zombie-themed these days...like I get that it's popular and the costuming/acting is pretty easy but "zombie apocalypse" stuff leaves me so cold. It's hard being SO invested in "undead" as a concept and also hating 90% of the modern interpretation of the topic lolsob). I would just love to see more fun locations to play around in that aren't Halloween pop-up operations (as much as I love Halloween pop-up operations, one time I legitimately started crying in a Spirit Halloween because the vibes were so good) and aren't megacorp-funded machines to drain the wallets of parents with 5 year olds.

Playing Octopath Traveler a little more, progressing stories and getting party banters for the first time and: yes! I love these! there need to be more though. Also I feel like they should take place in a location instead of in a black void but. I dunno, I'm torn between being disappointed by the low level of interaction and fully understanding on a bone-deep level how much WORK it would be to add more, so I'm reluctant to complain. Even a completely linear RPG with zero variables has a truly insane amount of text in it. The rest of the game is just SO good, though, that it makes that one flaw more glaring. Like, the game looks great, it's maybe the best designed turn-based game I've played in god knows how long, I'm really enjoying the character's stories...it's just that one thing.

Cyrus/Therion was my first shipping instinct, which I chalked up to personal biases regarding thieves and scholars, but actually it appears to be the second most popular pairing on AO3 which is. Interesting. It's also funny how just starting with a different character seems to change your perception of the story -- skimming summaries it seems like there are a decent amount of fics that involve Therion breaking into Cyrus's office in Atlasdam, which I initially considered some kind of AU until I realized that if you STARTED as Therion and recruited Cyrus later rather than the other way around, that would be like...a pretty reasonable thing to have happened.

Meanwhile I am obsessed with the fact that in MY playthrough, Therion apparently talked to Cyrus at a shitty bar in Boulderfall and was like "Hey, you wanna help me break into a house?" and Cyrus, who I have to stress is a history professor on sabbatical*, apparently was like "Oh, absolutely."

Cyrus as main character is just like, down for anything to an almost comical degree. Gotta respect a man with zero qualms about helping a sex worker commit murders though. A true feminist ally.










* he is also a wizard but you know, RPGs