Gamer's lethargy. It strikes us all!

So I've been struck down by the gamer's lethargy. You know that feeling where you've been playing a particular game, and you're not not enjoying it, and then when you put it down but can't be arsed in picking it up.

It's not like it's not good. So why don't I feel like playing?

Well the game was Tales of Graces F. I found the courage to break the seal on my EU Day One Edition one weekend and started playing it. The battle system is quite deep and the game is quite fun too. The graphics are Wii bit on the average side (see what I did thar?) The story and characters are ok, and the skits are actually quite funny. I managed to get past the childhood arc and got towards the end of chapter 1. Just I just can't seem to want to pick it up and play.

Of course this is not the first time. Many games I've been enthusiastically playing and one day just can't be bothered. Of course, most of them time it's because the game is average or meh, but Tales of Graces F is a good game.

So in the mean time I've been playing a bit of "blast from the past" Front Mission 3, grabbed from a PSN sale. I've previously beaten this game back when it first came out on the PS1. Great game. So I am slowly making progress through Emma's story, currently about 1/3 of the way through. Slowly...... because the game allows you to save in battle! Uh oh, you know what that means. The OCD in me has decided to abuse it to the hills and back. I would save and reload so battle skills proc favourably (they're random you see!) It would sometimes take me 2 hours to beat a battle.

Few things are as scary as an enemy melee unit.
One hit and you'll be picking up scraps for the
rest of the fight. Yikes!

The challenge in this game seems so random. Sometimes I've looked at certain maps and went "how
the f am I supposed to beat this?" You can do large amount of damage to the enemy, the enemy can do large amount of damage to you, except you're always out numbers and healing is inefficient/wasteful in this game. Combined with random skill AND combo activation for you and the enemy, one turn can go very right, or very wrong. For example, your machine gun could trigger a combo of RoFI x4, and destroy both of the enemy's arms and leave it powerless, or your rifleman trigger 3 PilotDmgI and kill the pilot in one turn. But on the other hand, the enemy melee unit can destroy your weapon arm in one hit, and then it's all over Red Rover. You're a sitting duck!

It's because I want to guard against these unfortunate mishaps that I am religiously saving after each turn. Enemy melee units scare the crap out of me, because they can consistently take out at least half of the HP of any of your parts in one go. My strategy is to get in the first hit with my own melee unit, praying that EjectPunch triggers, or a combo takes out their weapon arm. Thankfully EjectPunch has high activation rate, so it's worked well fairly well. For other units, I've just been using my gunners so they would hit the body/weapon arm with skill activation, and disarm them before it's their turn. All the reloading and resetting is killing my enjoyment of the game as there's no pride in taking the cheap shots, but I am messed up in the head and need professional help.

Until next time, where I might be typing from a psychiatric ward through my straight jacket.