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Backloggin' the Year - February 2018 Edition
02.27.2018

SAM MARCHELLO
PR ASSISTANT


RPGamer

Feburary was a very productive month gaming-wise, and neither Monster Hunter: World nor Overwatch got in my way of making some progress through my backlog. I completed one RPG, made progress in two others, and completed one non-RPG as well. I haven't added too many new games to my pile either, so the experience has been all right so far. Let's dive in, shall we?

Tales of Berseria

Tales of Berseria

Completion Time: 41 hours.

My goal in January was to finish Tales of Berseria, and that didn’t happen. At the beginning of February, I made it my mission that I was knocking this RPG out of my backlog. When I last checked in, I had made it to Hexen Isle. As of now, I’ve actually beaten the game.

I truly loved the ending of Tales of Berseria. There is something so compelling about the relationship between Laphi and Velvet. As the story continued to unfold, you see the intense grief that binds Velvet, and the ending in many senses is her coming to terms and facing it head on. It's an interesting message, and as someone who can relate, I found myself deeply empathizing with her bursts of rage and emotion.

I think Berseria's cast on a whole were also some of the most well defined, and I think that a lot of the sidequests emphasized a lot of their strengths and weaknesses. I wasn’t a huge Magilou fan at first, but she really grew on me as the story went on, and completing her sidequest made me appreciate her character so much more. I think my favourite sidequest, however, was doing Laphi's, if only because his determination and kindness filled me with so much joy.

Tales of Berseria easily may be one of my new favourite entries to the Tales series.

Miitopia

Miitopia

At this point, I've probably logged roughly thirty hours into Miitopia and the game continues to be far more fun than it has any right to be. I spent some of this month binge watching The Goldbergs and The Good Place, which in turn meant solid 3DS time. When I previously left off, I was still searching for the Dark Lord, Tay Swift, whom I have since defeated. Sadly, the Great Sage Becky (as in former staff member and dearest friend, Becky Cunningham) has transformed into the "Darker Lord." At this point I am working to find four gems that will take me to Darker Lord’s Tower. Currently, I have three, so it shouldn't take long!

Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4

After finishing Tales of Berseria, I put a poll out on my Twitter to vote on what game I should be playing next. The winner was Final Fantasy X, which hilariously I still haven’t picked up yet (but will soon!). However, Penny Arcade Adventures started calling to me -- I wanted something short after playing  a long game like Tales of Berseria. I am happy with this choice because this game is a ton of fun. I’ve always enjoyed Zeboyd Games' way in which they’ve turned ATB combat on its head, and this one has some light monster collecting to go with it. I really adore the sprite work and backgrounds. In particularly, I loved the section that was on the Living Train, because everything on the train had teeth and wanted you dead. At this point I am about four-ish hours into the game, and am working on completing Chapter 7, which takes place in a messed up zoo. So many animal puns.


The non-RPG I tackled was the three episodes of Life is Strange: Before the Storm. I am a huge Life is Strange fan, and I enjoyed seeing Chloe's side of the story, and I found the way the game built Chloe and Rachel Amber's relationship to be really compelling. The section of the game where Chloe has to preform in Shakespare's The Tempest is easily one of my favourite moments in this story. I also liked seeing how David was in Before the Storm and it was interesting to already have empathy for him given how he's portrayed as a militant monster in the original game. There was just a lot to love in Before the Storm and I highly recommend it.

There you have it! This is what I have been working through in the month of February. I am hoping in March to have knocked out Miitopia and Penny Arcade, which I think is doable. I am hoping to have some discussion next month on Final Fantasy X because I should have been playing it and then didn't. I have complicated feelings on Final Fantasy folks, but I promise I am going to finish it, XII and XV and try to be open-minded. We shall see how it goes!

Backlog Tally:

Number of RPGs completed: 2

Number of Non-RPGs completed: 4

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