October 16th, 2023

Did some game playing today. Really the only thing I did. The first was FFIV, the PC port of the 3D DS remake. It's ok, but even with normal mode the Tiny Mages are just way too much; they're an enemy in the dungeon right after you get Rydia, and their spells deal about 50 damage at a time when she has a bit less than 100 health. Plus the first augment (something unique to the 3D versions of the game, items that permanently give someone an ability) you get is kinda useless (automatically using a potion sounds nice until you realize that it just wastes all your potions), but I used it anyway to see what it did, which is actually bad because augmenting temporary party members has them give you augments! And one of them is Dualcast, and you're starved for augments early! So learning that was really annoying and made me just stop.

The other game was FFV, which I'm finding really fun even if I also fell into an annoying pitfall by mistake by not realizing how Blue Mage works. The Blue Mage needs to be the one that gets hit with the stealable ability; I thought it was just anyone, which made me think that you needed to get to level 3 in Blue Mage to start learning. So the end result was me doing the Canal segment thrice and the bulk of the Ship Graveyard twice as well. But I got through it. It's just really good classic JRPG stuff. Honestly makes me wanna get the Pixel Remasters for the other FF games, they actually made them not look butt ugly now!