Ray McGill

78 Days, One Day at a Time, and the Week Ahead

I count days now for a specific reason. I wrote about me and booze in the past, and needless to say it has reared its ugly head in my life again in a way that became supremely problematic. I finally decided to do something about it and I entered treatment for alcoholism. I completed a month and a half in rehab and am now living in a sober-house situation, all in order to not repeat mistakes of my past. Like I said in my last post, I haven’t gotten the chance to game in the way I used to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have plans to fix that. There are a couple of games that I started, but have not gotten deep into yet, but time will change that.

I admit it is weird to be sober in this way, this sort of enforced regimen. My head feels clearer than it has in a long, long time, but a large part of me has no clue what to do with the lack of fog. This new try at sobriety comes off the back of some actual legal problems, and as such, I cannot work as a teacher for the time being, not even substitute teaching. This has led to some money issues for me, I am actually kind of at the end of my financial rope, as I am forced to re-assess my situation, and what I can do for money. For the moment, I am applying to some jobs at places that I would have applied to as a teenager. I have an idea of what I want to do long-term, but it will take work, and I am frankly demoralized at the prospect of having to work at something again, especially as the teaching took so much time of my life, to largely amount to nothing.

Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut has a mode in it called “Red Light Raid”. I finally tried it just before, and it kind of sucks, at least solo. It just puts you through a meat grinder of random encounters with no real rhyme or reason to it. You get money for finishing the stages, which you can use to buy additional characters to use in these combat encounters. Kiryu and Majima each have 3 versions of themselves, one for each battle style, and the blacked-out “secret” characters are obviously the Legend fighting-forms of the two protagonists. It has multiplayer, which may enhance the experience, but I didn’t see the fun, especially since it doesn’t seem to fold back into the campaign experience at all.

I think I am winding down with this current play through of Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut. Not that I am close to beating the game per se, but I think I need to dive harder into something I have never played before. It’s a great game for sure, and never stops being great, but the additions to this version of the game over the original is definitely not justifying the time I am putting into it, especially with how limited my free time feels lately. This is one of those games where the sheer amount of extra stuff can end up taking over, and I think that is what happened here. But if you haven’t played this game before, it is definitely worth picking up.

Obligatory New Years Deal

As always it seems, a new year, and a new chance for me to look at this site, granted, I know this is happening in March, when normally I make these…not mea culpas, but promises in January. However, I have to admit my life took something of a hard-left turn at the start of the new year. I spend the tail-end of January, and all of February in the hospital, dealing with issues that needed to be dealt with. I did not have ready access to much in the way of video game-playing devices, as such, this year has had relatively few games played, but there have been a few, let’s get into it:

Hades II: A beyond-solid sequel to what is probably one of my top 10 games ever made. It does nothing to reinvent the Hades-fueled wheel, but instead, it doubles down on what made the first title great, which is basically everything. The story is good, not great; but has higher stakes than the first game. The dialogue and writing is top-notch once again, and the moment to moment gameplay is simply divine, with weapons that rival, and often surpass the first game in terms of fun. I don’t know that I like the level design nearly as much as the original Hades, but it is still good, with more variation making for different ways of approaching levels. It’s a great game, but it is not stoking the sublime feelings the first game did for me. I still want to get the true-ending to Hades II, I just don’t know when it will happen, just that it will.

Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut: Yakuza 0 is what got me into the whole Like a Dragon series in the first place, which considering it is a prequel, is no small feat. This game was already jam-packed with so much to do, that it was a truly dizzying affair. Yakuza games are really half super-serious crime dramas, half Sega amusement parks, and I am here for all of it. So far I am not seeing a lot of the changes made for this Director’s Cut, save one huge deal: the English voice track. I find in my old age, I look for expediency in things, even at times at the expense of an authentic experience. This is a very long-winded way of saying one simple thing: I am playing Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut with the English voice track. While this may seem like some debasement of the series as a whole to some, I do applaud the English cast, giving the characters the weight and gravitas they all deserve. The game still feels serious when it needs to, silly when it needs to, and I don’t even have a problem with the honorifics being kept with the English voices. The Real Estate Royale and Cabaret Club Czar games are still triumphs of side-game design, and really I would still play entire games where these systems were fleshed out, and made into their own Like a Dragon entries.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak: This one I have played the least out of my 2026 in gaming. So far I am liking it, and I am appreciating the (seemingly) clean break from how absolutely overstuffed the Trails of Cold Steel arc made things, but I am sure that will change, and by the end of the second game, I will be making a party from something like 82 characters. I am not saying the 82 characters is a bad thing, as the Legend of Heroes series has made me care about just about everyone I have used in a battle over the course of a dozen-plus games; but the chance to focus on a couple of new ones is just kind of refreshing. Not much I can say about this one yet, but if it follows in the tradition of quality of the Cold Steel arc, I know I will be in for something that is a lot of fun.

So that is what I have been playing so far, in this year of our lord 2026. All of it is on the Steam Deck, and I feel that is where most of my gaming this year will be done. I do want to get back to writing here, writing more, blah blah blah. Same shit I say every year, let’s see if I can stick to it.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

The first 3 Mass Effect titles were some of my favorite of the X360 generation. I was never much of a shooter person, but the promise of deep writing and RPG mechanics sucked me in, mixed with the space setting I knew Bioware could knock out of the park based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. I played all three games in the series at least twice, checking out the alignment options, and seeing how it changed the story. Each time, I very much enjoyed the fleshed-out world, the writing, the great characters, and the variety of things to do, and the permutations of choice.

Enter late 2024/early 2025, and I decided to get back to that N7 grind with Mass Effect: Legendary Edition on Xbox Game Pass. So far I have beaten Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, and I have not been disappointed in going back to these games. ME1 changes the most with the Legendary Edition, introducing a new, streamlined leveling system, cutting the number of levels in half, while ME2 seems largely the same. Honestly I cannot tell if there were a ton of little changes put into the titles, it has been a while since I played the X360 originals. The big change for me this time is how I am roleplaying Shepard. First, I am playing as the female Shepard, who is voiced by Jennifer Hale. While the character model doesn’t look as great as the male character model, the voice is definitely better. Hale is very emotive, doing a great job, especially in the second part of how I am playing the game.

The biggest difference in this playthrough is how I am playing Shepard as a Renegade. Starting in ME1, it is established early that much of the galaxy’s denizens are uneasy with humans, especially how fast they have ascended in galactic culture. I am a life-long fan of Star Trek, so I am always used to embracing multiculturalism in my sci-fi. However, you can play Shepard as a straight-up human-first racist, and yeah it can feel uncomfortable. This is especially due to the fact that you are forced to assemble a crew of different races, and they will occasionally comment on some of the attitudes they experience in the world. While it can be entertaining to play this version of Shepard, this feels like the more contrived personality for the character, at least the full on Xenophobic stuff. I also hoped I would have gotten to see the all-human Council, but no such luck.

The collection is pretty great, showing the evolution in a fantastic game series. I have still never played Mass Effect: Andromeda, but maybe I will carve some time out when I finish the third game, which won’t be happening for a while. Still have so much to play!

This Past Week

I promise, this is not a New Year’s Resolutions post. Instead, this is a time of having my eyes opened. I am founding a cult. I am not founding a cult, I just feel nervous talking about anything real. 2024 was the worst year I have ever had, health-wise. As of this writing, I am currently waiting to be discharged from the hospital for the 3rd time in 12 months for Pancreatitis. For those of you who have also had it, I am sorry, you know how painful it is. It feels like something is trying to escape your abdomen by stabbing its way out. There is also one way in which it is commonly caused, and that cause is the reason why I keep getting it.

While I have been drinking less alcohol over the years, I am also getting older. I am approaching 40, and it appears I can no longer treat my body like a dumpster, that’s on fire, and that no one is coming to put out. I have to put out that fire, and to that end, I am giving up alcohol, in its entirety. It is responsible for pretty much any health issues I have, is the biggest barrier I have left to losing weight, improving my mental health, as well as my finances.

So what does this all mean? Honestly I have no clue. I am not resolving to do anything. I don’t promise to work out, engage in some sort of pursuit. Every time I have, I have fallen very short, very fast. I just know some things need to change, and this change just happened to come at the new year. Good luck to me.

Games I Would Love to Beat

I have some grid thing up on my Twitter page, pinned even, with a bunch of games I thought I was going to beat in 2024. Haha. I am barely getting to any of that, maybe I will try again next year. Instead, I have been looking at the JRPG gaps, and I think I can list 3 I really want to get to before year’s end.

Xenosaga Episode I: I love the Xeno-series in all its permutations, at least what I have played. Xenogears is an all-time great, and I love Xenoblade Chronicles 1-3 very much. My huge gap is Xenosaga, for which I have no real excuse. I had a PS2 back then, I had played, and loved Xenogears. I hope that finally getting to this title will get me to play the other two, and fill in a major gap, from a time of my life where I was playing a lot of games.

Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete: I have played most versions of Lunar: Silver Star Story, hell, I even have the iOS version. I have started Eternal Blue several times in my life and just never followed through. I don’t know if it was because I was attached to the original cast, or what, but if it is as compact as the Silver Star games, I think I can get this one done.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Tried it so many times, got kind of into it, could never follow through. I was too much of a fan of the PS1 Final Fantasy Tactics, that the tonal change to the GBA series really threw me. In my advanced age, I am way more willing to meet a game where it is at, so this would be a great time to give this series another try.

3 games…we will see.

Micro Review: Pipe Dream (NES)

Developer: Distinctive Software
Publisher: Bullet-Proof Software, Lucasarts (1990)

I find it very odd I had never heard of this game, except in passing, like when reading Chris Scullion’s NES Encyclopedia. This game has had a ton of iterations, across decades, on multiple systems. The first version of this game was the 1989 version of Pipe Mania, released on the Amiga. The NES version seems to have gotten something of a graphical upgrade from what I was able to notice, and the music choices are pretty catchy, and works well for the type of puzzle game it is; it gives at times some of the frenetic push that helps puzzle games like this and Tetris.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward, granted with some experimentation. You put down pieces of pipe that come from the list on the left-hand side of the screen. Pieces cannot be rotated, with unneeded pieces either having to be placed off to the side, or placed in your path in order to be blown up by a needed piece replacing it. There is a slight score/time penalty to blowing up pieces though, so you kind of have to be judicious in how you use that mechanic. After a set time delay, a liquid, called “Flooz” for this game starts coming through the track of pipe you have laid down. The level ends when the Flooz either cannot go through anymore pipes, or hits a wall. Clearing the level involves putting down a minimum amount of piping, and score is calculated by how long the track is, with bonuses for making tracks loop, using the cross-shaped pipes.

Would I rather play this over something like Tetris? Probably not. But this is a very competent puzzle game that I can see coming back to once in a while. I felt utterly stupid at first while playing it, but after a few tries, I found something approximating a groove. Pipe Dream is a game that hits that right ratio of frustration-to-satisfaction that a good puzzle game should.

Should you play it?: If you enjoy puzzle games, yes. Especially if you like puzzle games with quick individual levels. I cannot remember spending any more than 90 seconds on any level I actually completed. It is a quick, frenetic game that will actually wake you up in your pipe-laying panic. I am sure there are some crazy pros out there who can make the pipe-tracks last seemingly forever, and I am sure the later levels would ask that of me, at least in comparison to what I was accomplishing.

New Idea: Micro Random Retro Reviews

So I had an idea earlier when watching a video from Retro Game Corps on YouTube. I have this library of games on my computer, including many classics from decades ago. I have a Retroid Pocket 3+, which is such a great device, and plays a multitude of games so well, all the way up to things like some Gamecube and PS2 games, though I tend to stick with the older, and handheld stuff on the device. I know the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is out, and its ability to play the entire library of Gamecube and PS2, especially upscaled is so impressive. However, it is already mid-August, and I do have a Steam Deck for the heavier stuff. So I think I will wait for early 2025 to see if Retroid announces a Retroid Pocket 5/Pro. They seem to be upgrading chipsets every year, so for now I can wait. I am excited to see if a hypothetical Pocket 5 Pro can play OG Xbox games well. But back to my idea; I have all of these older, not long games, especially on things like the 8, and 16-bit generations. The Daijisho front-end that I use on my Pocket 3+ has a very handy function for each individual system, marked as “random”. It doesn’t blindly load me into a game, but it shows me a random game I have loaded, and I can play it. I think this is something worth exploring, exploring old libraries and just taking myself back to the ye olden times of 1985-roughly 2008? That sounds right. In any case, this sounds like a fun little project, so let’s get to the first thing.

Adventure Island 2 (NES, 1991)
Developer: Now Production
Publisher: Hudson Soft
I feel like this is going to be a regular event for the oldest games I play in this little endeavor; I have no idea what the story of the game is. I had to go to Wikipedia to see what it is. My guess is that the entire story of the game is contained in the instruction manual, which is something I also want to build a digital collection of. So without that explanation, I have a…grass-skirt wearing dude with a baseball cap riding skateboards, throwing stone axes and riding dinosaurs. I definitely played this game as a child, probably renting it from Blockbuster way back when.

This is a very competent game, with fun mechanics, and the physics are consistent and easy to learn. Some of the dinosaur companions you ride can feel a bit slippery, but they have the added bonus of giving you a chance to be struck by an enemy and not die. While dying is almost too easy to do, due to not being on a dinosaur results in one-hit kills, you never feel like the game is going out of its way to be cheap. The game has a continue system, and really, save states solve everything when it comes to old-school chicanery.

The levels are not particularly imaginative, with contemporary NES games doing far more in the level-design space by the early 1990’s. Fortunately, the levels are short, and meet the bare-minimum standard for being varied enough. The worst type of levels are the swimming levels, which if you don’t at least have the axes at the ready, you can feel pretty weak and slow. I did enjoy the vertical levels, as the enemy placement seemed more like a puzzle piece, and less of a way of killing you.

There appear to be warps, I triggered one by accident, but I have no clue what I did, or if it is repeatable. This game clearly took a lot of cues from the standard-bearers of the NES library, and it is definitely good, but not great. Is it worth this series being re-released on something modern, thinking that people would pay real money for it? No, but if you know how to use RetroArch, it is totally fine as a time-filler, and a great example of how the NES really ran the gamut of some of the best games ever made, to some unplayable messes. This game sits somewhere right above the middle, and I look forward to seeing if future entries appear in my random list.

Should you play it?: Yes, it is easily accessible, especially if you’re willing to ride those high seas. I cannot imagine this game is expensive at a retro-games store either, or something like eBay. (Edit: This game was apparently also available on the 3DS E-Shop, at least in Europe, obviously not anymore as that shop closed down.)

Backlogs

I am more inclined to think that the vast majority of people who play many video games have a significant backlog. Humble Bundles, Steam Sales, Green Man Gaming, free games on the Epic Games Store, and other things (Sailing them seas) have blessed us all with more hours of cheap entertainment that we can know what to do with. My own PC, and various hard drives are living memorials essentially to video games; games I own, games I have played, never played, played some of, and games I will play games time and time again until they day I die.

I have been into quite a bit lately, and having fun in doing so. I recently replayed Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami. Since beating Infinite Wealth, I wanted to get back to the earlier parts of the story, and experience some of that again. I don’t know when I will get to Kiwami 2, and onwards, but really that’s fine. I have played and beaten all of those in the past, and I find myself looking toward my backlogs, both purchases sitting on a shelf, digital front-end, or however, and I question the need to buy new games. I have been so remiss in some titles through the years, and I have the means to easily play those. There are some titles I will get on day 1, or whatever, like for instance, Eiyuden Chronicle. I was a Kickstarter Backer for this game, and it is a game that I waited months to play, but now that I am in it, I am so happy. It is still early for me, but I do plan on writing more about that as I get through it.

I have also been playing around more with my Retroid Pocket 3+. Specifically I have been eyeing GBA games I missed out on as a youngster. So I started Advanced Wars on the GBA, and I got through the field training sessions. I am looking forward to getting more into that. The only entry I ever got far into was Advanced Wars: Dual Strike on the Nintendo DS. I lent that game to a guy I knew in college, never got it back. That and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. From what I have seen, they both are games that command premium prices on the secondary market.

So back…to backlogs. Video games are expensive, and I have a massive backlog. I plan on looking at the calendar for releases this year, and make a list of games I really do want to drop everything and play right away. As of this moment, all I can think of is the newest Legend of Heroes entry. But for the moment, I think I want to concentrate on the massive list of games I have missed through the years, especially in that older-game space. I have so much I want to try, and I think it is time I write all of this out, change some habits. Failure to launch, to fire, to trying and bailing early, I am wrapping my mind around what makes me do these things. I feel inspired by things I see on Twitch, how streamers tackle retro games. I also love it when I can find well-written review and video content, from folks like Indy Gamer Chick, and Retro Game Corps. Jeff Gerstmann’s ranking NES games videos also greatly appeal to me. Gameifying my gaming; truly a testament to how the modern world has ruined my attention span.

Been Working on Myself

2024. I have been putting off writing this because I didn’t want to feel like it was just getting caught up in the New Year’s zeitgeist. I am not a huge fan of resolutions, mainly because I was never good at the follow through. We are almost 2 weeks into the new year however, and I have been able to sit down and think about what I really want out of myself now. I am no longer a young man, nor am I an old man. I need to expect more from myself. I have this habit of withdrawing into myself, retreating from life for various reasons. Depression, anxiety, lack of motivation coming from both, feeling down about various parts of my life, and the list goes on; I know I am not unique in that sense.

I think it’s time I ~~try to~~ break through some of my own insecurities and be a better version of me. I don’t hate myself (today), but I know I have many areas in which to improve. I find myself not even indulging in my hobbies in my free time, I mainly just binge crap TV lately. I have a huge backlog of Gunpla, and I really haven’t touched video games yet this year. Therapy helps, but I have also been neglecting my health with both the medications I should be taking and working out.

I know with video games, I will be good in a few weeks with the release of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, as well as the imminent release of Persona 3 Reload. If I had to say which I am more excited to play, honestly Like a Dragon is a brand new direction for the series, and appears to be a very fitting sendoff. I have no doubt that game will make me cry. Persona 3 is an amazing game, my major hope for it is that the female protagonist route gets added as some DLC, or the Persona 3 Ultimate edition or some shit. I am used to buying Persona games twice, I’ll do it for that too.

In any case, this post is actually longer than I thought it would be. I want to get back to writing on this desperately, I miss putting my thoughts out there for the few who deign to read. I don’t know what the future holds, I just know I want to be present more in my own future. Here is to hoping.

Return to (Writing) Form? Trails into Reverie Impressions

This past Summer has felt like a giant waste of time. I barely played any video games, barely did much of anything really. Only recently have I been feeling more like myself, and able to sort of interact with the world again. During the Summer, I don’t know if it was depression or what, but I was really insular, not really playing video games, really not interacting with the outside world. Which is a shame, as one of my most anticipated games came out during the Summer, The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie. Instead, I just vegged out for what felt like months and watched old TV on my computer. I don’t think I even turned my TV on for something like 60 days.

Luckily that gloomy period is over, and I am back to being my generally cynical, but pretty happy-self. To that end, I have finally delved deeply into Trails into Reverie. I am over 4-dozen hours in, and as expected I love this game. It quickly became the most bonkers, nonsense-anime game this series has turned out, and I am here for it. It’s not perfect, one big flaw being the sheer scope of the roster. You seem to get every single character ever used in the previous games in your party eventually, as well as new ones. I think I read somewhere that you get over 40 characters in total, which is absolutely insane. Coupled with the massive roster, the game really wants you to grind in the ever evolving dungeon, the Reverie Corridor. This dungeon is…away from the main story for the most part, which could change later, I just don’t know yet. The setup really resembles the main gameplay loop from Trails in the Sky 3rd, being something of a dungeon-crawler setup. Also for those who didn’t play 3rd, think how Tartarus is set up in Persona 3.

Just be forewarned: The game is very grind-heavy. If you don’t like the idea of spending entire play sessions just rotating through a huge cast, making sure the levels of your party are approaching parity, then this may not be the game for you. There are catch-up items that you can get in battle, but relying on those is really not feasible, as the grinding will also make sure you are flush with cash, and have enough materials and accessories for your giant cast.

The story of this game is…great for me, but I have played every game in the series preceding this one. This game may in fact be the worst jumping-off point I have ever seen in a video game series. If you haven’t played every Trails game, you will be lost in some way, if not several, if not totally lost. So far Trails in the Sky seems the least represented, but it’s still there. If you haven’t played the Crossbell duology, and Trails of Cold Steel in its entirety, you will be very confused as to what is going on. For those of you that have taken in all Zemuria has to offer previously however, the story is great, and seems to be something of tying a bow on the current cast, before Falcom gets Kuro no Keseki over to the West. The triple-protagonist system in the game is handled well, controlling the cast (for now) in the main stories. I am almost certain the 3 disparate groups will eventually come together.

The fact you have so many characters lends itself to variety in battle, with many compositions being not only viable, but fun to play. That is a good thing, as the amount of systems layered on top of each other is kind of nuts. There are several gauges, bars, turn orders, orders, etc. I could try to explain it, but without context, it’s useless. It is a lot, and really the culmination of all 3 Trails series coming together. I actually am hoping Kuro no Keseki pares some of this back, being a fresh start in the Zemurian story.

By now, it should be obvious I am a total mark for the Trails series, and I really hope Falcom continues its tradition of getting the games out of Japan, and in front of a more worldwide audience. These games combine a great aesthetic, music, story, and most of all, heart to make a JRPG world that feels lived-in. 11 games into the series and I have to say is all I want is more. I cannot wait to finish this stellar title, and fidget waiting for Kuro no Keseki.

UPDATE: I did finish the game, my impressions hold up. I love this game, and I think anyone who loves JRPGs should give this series a go.