Shameless Gaming Month, July 2012 – update 3

shameless-gaming-july-2012

Time for more updates as we get closer to the end of the month!

I managed to finish Phantasy Star 2 and at the same time exceeded my original grind on the game that saw me hitting level 35 or 36 with Rolf (to get Megid!) and topping out there. The promised hyperbolic post is coming with lots of happy snaps, but I’ll be getting onto writing it up in August.

In terms of the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, I got my platinum for it last night, so I managed to 100% it which is what I was aiming for! There were some tricky ones in there (Columns and Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine in particular caused some strife, the former of which is surprising because I used to be really good at it when I was a kid), but I managed to get it done. It’s such a shame that the emulation on the collection was so rough, but then again the price of entry was super-cheap, so it’s probably not worth complaining too much about now that Sega has started using M2 as their emulation developer.

… which leaves Monster World 4 – so I’m going to finish up this post so I can go and sink some time into it and see how far I can get before the month ends in a few days!

Shameless Gaming Month, July 2012 – update 2

shameless-gaming-july-2012

So, time for another update!

I haven’t spent much time hammering away at Monster World 4 or the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection – I have been sinking all my gaming time into Phantasy Star 2 though, and it is proving to be an unbelievable experience going back and playing this amazing, seminal JRPG from my childhood. For those who have played through the game, I’ve just finished the dungeons on Dezo and am about to pick up the Neisword to grind my party levels up a bit on Noah, then it’ll be time to take a crack at the double-whammy of end game bosses. I reckon I’ll be able to tidy it up this week, which then leaves a couple of weeks to get stuck into the other titles I’ve picked out for this month.

I’ve actually been documenting my playthrough of Phantasy Star 2 in photos as I’ve played through important plot points or found other bit of trivia, including some hand-written notes by my brother and I had written in the official Phantasy Star 2 hint book that came with our original copy of the game on the SMD back in 1993. I have some ideas on a piece I want to write on the experience for the blog, so be prepared for a lengthy post about reliving one of the pivotal points in my gaming history. I promise it will include hyperbolic overtones (like “pivotal”, “juxtaposition” and “ahead of its time”), because any regular reader of Retro Otaku has probably got the hint that I am prone to suffering the occasional moment of hyperbolic-induced hysteria over something trivial 🙂