PLEDGE GAMES
The youtube production My Life In Gaming started giving themselves Pledge Games, games they’d promise themselves they’d play in the foolish errand of eliminating the backlog. While I have reached 40 years old believing that I’ll never see all the things, especially video games, I am still a human. Making a list and a plan is fun. And magically I got through all 10 games on my list. Even if I got sidetracked.
See, this became The Year Of The Super Famicom. Last year I bought a Super Famicom because my Super Famicom went missing. I would go on to have bad impulse control and replenish my collection. Which while not the 100 yen they were 20 years ago, Super Famicom games are still quite cheap.
The console is finicky. The cartridges I collected only worked after massive cleaning. About 8 of them just didn’t work period. There’s a Yahoo Auctions Seller I WOULDN’T recommend let me tell you.
I started 2024 by playing Final Fantasy VI in Japanese on my MiSTeR on my HDTV. It’s a fantastic game. It’s filled with fantasticly written characters in fantastic scenarios. Then the world ends. Then the characters must be collected for a slim whisper of justice for the remains of the world.
The second half is video game focused. I got to dance my hands over the controller into the abilities of our heroes. That doesn’t mean I didn’t cast X-Zone/Banish against the Dragons. Those guys hit for 2000 damage a turn!
We’ll get to the Pledge Games but I must commit to this esaay when Celes joins The Resistance and several members don’t trust a labratory raised genocider who just recently got a concenious. Her sprite turns around and says, “Judge me by my actions, not my past.” Then turns around and walks on. On my couch I whispered, “woah.”
GAME 1: Great Ace Attorney (PS4)
I was fully prepared to sit down and enjoy some turn of the century courtroom comedy-drama murder mysteries on my ps4. When I still wasn’t done with the first trial after 2 nights of 2 hours sessions my preparation vanished. My heart dropped and my brain took its place when I found out Time To Beat said the two games would take me 80 hours.
The story is too slow! The reveals are given out just enough so you don’t quit playing. Every event takes 10 text boxes too many to be evented. You know how many books I could read in 80 hours?
GAME 2: Card Fighters Clash (NGPC)
I played this game on too hot and too cold days in San Marcos, Texas in college. I would see the credits and go “this game is too simple! Better cards win. You can’t outsmart the game!” Here in 2024 I played it on a real Neo Geo Pocket Color that was the same color but not the same one as in the past.
I got 45 minutes into the game and decided I (past) was right. I saw the game before me of either having Better Cards and winning or Worse Cards and losing. At least I played one thing on the NGPC I bought almost entirely for aesthetic purposes. That purpose? Sitting in my closet because I don’t have any room to display it.
GAME 3: Chrono Trigger (SFC)
See even if I had started suddenly FF6 in Japanese, I had planned on playing Chrono Trigger in Japanese. I even had big plans of getting multiple endings. I played it. I saw the credits. I liked it. It is a saturday morning cartoon of a video game. The characters are looser than FF6. I was never 100% sure what they were thinking or why they were doing anything. There is an immediate plot motivation for everything, as a good cartoon does. But the dynamics aren’t there.
Just to really annoy at least one person, once Maoh is in the party the characters leave the game. They are there to be moved by my controller. Great game. I read the other endings after I got the first one.
GAME 4: Fading Afternoon (PC)
yeo can make games and I will continue to buy them. This is my least favorite of his, though it might be my fault to begin with. Fading Afternoon can be described as Ringo Ishikawa The Video Game. There are systems, a hunger meter, you gotta pay for hotel rooms, and a faction system. I managed to piss off two rival Yakuza groups and suddenly had alerts that my territory was being attacked constantly. The attacks aren’t small. I was forced to destroy at least 20 men with my fists each time.
I felt worn down.
That’s probably what yeo wanted me to feel. I could have restarted the game. That would not have changed that every “fight” in this game is beating 20 men in a row. It was exhausting.
GAME 5 T’Chia (PS5)
is one of three small ethnic group makes a Wind Waker-like. It broke my heart by being a video game. You’re informed it doesn’t matter if you perform well in the rhythm mini-game. During the rhythm mini-game there is a constant prompt to skip this cultural’s traditional song and rhythm game stuff happening. There’s Assassin’s Creed Stuff To Do. People talk like it is a video game.
I would have continued hoping to find the good in there but for a game ending flaw. When I dove under the water the sound became muffled in a way that triggered my misophonia. I screamed and threw off my headphones the second I went underwater. I put them back on. It still sounded like that. I quit the game. It was immediate in how I couldn’t stand it.
GAME 6: FINAL FANTASY TACTICS (PS1)
I refused to look at FAQs or people’s advice about Calculators. I also did not want to leave one enemy alive while I hit my own guys and cast heal to level up and actually unlock skills. I did not want to dig deep into menus to equip “use item” and then remember to equip items. In 2024 I found out some people really like all those things.
I like to be given a small set of tools and being asked to succeed with those tools. At the beginning of FFT my tools were Attack. I saw a long path before I had even a small set of Tools. I turned off the game knowing it wasn’t for me.
GAME 7: Dragon Quest (FC)
I decided to play the original Famicom version of Dragon Quest in Japanese. I wanted to see the game that became a phenomenom. I was defeated. The math is absolutely fucked in the original. It would have taken me three hours of grinding to get that next precious armor piece needed to take on the dungeon hidden out of bounds in a town. I was shocked to find progress hidden so ludologically transgressive.
The math in NES Dragon Warrior is better and yet still play the Game Boy Color version. You can beat it in an afternoon. The thrill of a new level or equipment will be the same. The decisions will be the same.
Game 8: GOTENZEINHER (PCECD)
This is a fascinating game that I’ve already written elsewhere. The gist is you are a princess rescued by the hero with his dying breath now you must reverse escape the Demon Lord’s Castle. I streamed it for friends and we realized in horror as we realized the slowdown was because the game was holding the position of every enemy and item in RAM. It’s not a good game, but as a game that is janky and takes 90 minutes it is filled with charm and ideas.
Game 9: Chrono Cross (PS1)
Chrono Cross is a stunning audio-visual feast that is an absolute slog to play. The modern re-release has the turbo speed go 4x as fast as the original because anything less would be too slow. I am glad I finished it. The last 10 hours of 35 were with gritted teeth and determination.
The bigger tragedy is they couldn’t figure out how to tell the story they wanted to tell, so just turn to camera and explain it. I felt ruined by that.
We’ll get to The Tenth Game soon but closing this page out with my 2025 Pledge Games:
- Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel
- Blaster Master Blasting Again
- Warioland 4
- King’s Field (any)
- Rockman Dash
- Grandia 3
- Estopolis 2
- Echo
- Axelay
- 9-9-9
- Alundra 2
That’s right eleven games. Now I can talk about the tenth seventh game.
NEXT: I fully understand you’re very busy Rudie, but you should check out my newest VR Battles.
Hinge Problems 
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