The RSS feed got turned off (in unrelated news, I'm too lazy to change my theme because I'd have to upload to imgur or swap out the content of the images out from under Backloggery).

I wrote a bunch about Strange Journey Redux. If you're okay with a small wall of text, and interested in what I have to say you can read it [Link] (That's just the summary, I kept an 11-entry journal along the way).

It feels weird to have so much to say about a game that is actually kind of boring to play, but I was trying to stretch some muscles I don't use as much in my journal entries. Writing them down as I went along helped solidify my thoughts. I think I'd probably have had as much to say about, say, Xenoblade 3 if I had taken the time throughout - now, much of Xenoblade 3 is a blur even though I enjoyed playing it more.

My main issue with Q for me, which ended up killing my interest in the series for years, was the FOE mechanic. It added a lot of nuisance busywork to all the dungeon crawling and overly complicated things. It's not so bad at first, but later down the line it all becomes a major pain in the arse and by late game I got really sick of playing along and started brute forcing my way through.

Naturally, brute forcing meant more grinding to become strong enough to smash through the FOEs, and that realization bit me hard. Eventually I decided to give up and move on to less arduous grinds. It really disrupts the flow of the game for me and made it four times more of a slog than the average SMT game.

Yeah, Strange Journey's quite a slog, alright... I remember that much from the initial version. Still enjoyed it... sometime I might have to try and look for the Redux if I can regain my interest in SMT again; Persona Q had snuffed it out years ago and I haven't been able to get back into it since, and I'd really like to at some point. Especially when I have a couple other SMT games I'd like to try...

Rather proud of myself for having gone to the trouble of making a powerful Hathor and Alice in the first version of SJ. They're two of my favorite demons so I had to work quite a bit to them them strong skills and something for Hathor that could nullify her weakness.

I experimented with the monsterfication-cyberization (?) mechanic a bit myself... it's alright and probably the only way to get special talents unique to that form... but you're right in that remaining in your default forms is the best way to go in the long run.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it since it didn't retain much from the first two games, but after I started getting into it I started to like it more. I do still prefer the second game overall, but it's nice not to have to worry about my weapons breaking down with constant use.

Maybe if I ever do another run in the future I'll try seeing just how well I can do with a full party of monsters.