So, this is it. The start of my website. Maybe I'll make the blog look better later. Soon probably since I've been perusing other neocities pages and have been floored by the works of other people. It's like what I feel the internet should have been. People creating things that are more them than something like a stupid 100 character bio or a profile picture. I am so tired of going to the same sites over and over and over. I sound like a boomer, but really this neocities thing is wonderful and instead of growing hateful and obnoxious about what could have been I'll just let myself enjoy the wonder of seeing sites made by people. I think everyone should have one of these things. HTML is still a new thing to me, but with the template I was set up with (Thank you for the 99th time Kat), I think I can learn it from here. I already know how to add text and images and do some formatting with it. Anyways, I started to write this with the intention of talking mostly about Etrian Odyssey 3: The Drowned City. Since I've been playing it a lot as of late and it's been just fantastic.
So, Etrian Odyssey 3 is a turn based RPG by Atlus with music by the legendary Ys composer Yuzo Koshiro. It's a first person dungeon crawler not unlike the original Shin Megami Tensei games just modernized and sped up to the point where it feels at home on a portable system like the DS. You make your own adventuring company, pick out and create your own team and then map out a city (in reality, the "city" is just one massive dungeon segmented into stratums) that has been forced underwater, hence the game's subtitle.
I named my company SquinkCo, since I didn't have enough characters to call it anything cooler, and started building my team. The game has a number of classes all with 4 different sprites with 2 different palettes to choose from for customization and so I made my team based off of my friends and what classes their personalities reminded me of. That has to be one of the best features you can have in an RPG. That level of customization is quick way to win me over. Especially considering that it's a rarity to see it done well. The only games that come to mind when it comes to that ability to personalize is the early final fantasy games (1, 3, and 5). Anyways, like I said I haven't yet finished EO3, but I'd say the game is likely going to be a winner since it found a way to make walking back and forth through the same couple floors in the first area of the game very fun. I think this is due to the portable nature of the DS. While it is 2022 and it would be pretty weird to take a DS with you, the fact that the game can just be left open and whenever you feel like it you can make a little bit of progress here and there is lovely. I couldn't imagine the game being nearly as fun in an emulator, especially considering the map drawing aspect of the game. That's one thing I neglected talking about because I think it deserves its own little blurb. The map of the dungeon floors isn't mapped for you, only the spaces you step on. It's up to you to map out the walls of the dungeon and label the spots where chests, doors, and secret passageways are. When I first started the game I thought it was really boring, as the game forces you to draw out part of the first floor's map, but by the time I had finished the floor I actually found it pretty relaxing, especially since you can just fill in the walls and stuff during combat if your strong enough to just auto battle all the monsters. I recommend it so far. Maybe I'll make another blog post if that opinion changes. You'll want to play it on a DS (or hacked 3DS) though, since drawing a map on an emulator sounds miserable, and it won't have the same pick up and play nature since playing handheld games through emulation just doesn't have the same feeling as it does on real hardware.
With some older consoles like the NES or SNES there are very few games where playing it on original hardware is actually better. In fact, I'd argue emulating the NES is better than playing the real thing (And I say that as an NES owner!). The SNES still has some games where your best experience will be on a CRT in a dark room where it's just you and the sound of the TV, however. Chief among them are games like the now wildly popular 1994 JRPG Earthbound, Link to the Past, and most shoot em ups like Gradius 3, U.N. Squadron, or Super R-Type. This is mostly because of the display. Mesen does a good job with it's NES CRT filter if you fiddle with the settings enough, but the SNES still has better color, image, and feel overall on a CRT with a real controller. The sad thing though, is that SNES systems are dropping dead. Faster than the NES actually. I was fortunate enough to have picked up a SNES Jr., which is pretty well regarded as one of the more reliable one. But in any case, the graphics chips are the most common parts of the system to crap out. Which can lead to the system practically becoming unusable, in the case of this one with a fried PPU.
Image is credit to DogP's SNES page here, a great source on the unfortunate fate of what is in my opinion the best game console ever made.