Media Monday: Dragon Warrior & True Detective
- Dragon Warrior I - ★★★☆☆
This title has a fixture in my childhood. I think I mainly watched my dad play, but maybe started and restarted games of my own. We played forever. Ridmular (sic) was so far away. We did beat it though, on the original NES. This was the GBC version, played on my phone, and I beat it in approximately 48 hours. Not 48 hours of play, but from the time I started. I had all the best gear, and I paced up in down in the Dragon Lord's front hallway to boost up two levels to 21 in order to take him out. Sure, I checked a world map online, but the original game came with a printed one. And Nintendo Power was full of 'em. My first issue even had a pull-out mini-book full of Dragon Warrior stuff… I can only assume they really changed the balance around on the remake. Or maybe I've got a lot of questions for my dad…
- Remember Me - ★★☆☆☆
Good thing: This was part of my new PS+ subscription! Bad thing: The game. It was secretly(?) a God of War clone. They really sold this on the memory remixing, and there's so little of that here. Most of the playing in memories you do is in the vein of the Mario help system: watch a ghost do something, then do that thing. It got a little better after the tutorial levels, but that's about when the reusing levels starts. Even a remix part got recycled. Also, It contains the line, "you must run down riddlehead and steal the access protocols for the conception cube. He's headed for the metal security post on the 103rd floor." but that's not really a spoiler, because it doesn't mean anything.
- Dragon Warrior II - ★★★☆☆
I was listening to some of the Indoor Kids podcast while I played this, and someone talked about how sometimes you play games to beat them and other times just to see them. I was in DWI to beat it, but I think DWII just to see it all. I brazenly turned to online help with entering the final area, when I saw no villager that happened to know the answer, I used saves to win the lotto and it didn't bother me at all. I came to see, and I did. The beginning of part 3 seems an overwhelming pile of choices, so I might not come back to the series right away. 3/5
True Detective
I liked this show. I enjoyed the mythos references. I was satisfied with the conclusion and I'm excited that the next season isn't going to be a direct sequel and I liked all that investigating. I also ended up reading a lot about it online as it was happening, and mostly it made me wish the internet wasn't quite so full of public contemplation. It's not the (inconsequential) spoilers, it's that not one of those articles enhanced my enjoyment of the show, enriched my thoughts or discussions about the show, or were even simply entertaining in their own right. They don't even really help the authors, who - yes - got me to click, but also now make me want to unsubscribe from their websites so that I don't make the same mistake of wasting my time on inane commentary the next time around.