like a star, like a firefly

When I'd last played the Switch version of Tales of Vesperia back in 2019, I'd just returned to Dahngrest after finishing up at Ghasfarost, immediately before the next major set of events that happened there.

Since I picked the game back up just over a week ago, I've made it to Mount Temza -- slightly past the farthest point I'd ever gotten to in the 360 version!

( Some assorted thoughts, with spoilers for up to Mount Temza )

I think I've got a hard boss coming up very soon, so I'm wishing myself luck with that...

With the 3DS going offline tomorrow, I've finally gotten around to doing the one thing I absolutely had to get done while that console's online services were still active...

I got Benny and Beruka married through My Castle battles in Fire Emblem: Fates.

There was a point to this! I'd hit a point in Conquest where both the next main story battle and the My Castle defence thingie had nothing but promoted enemies, and I felt like my party hadn't been raised as well as it could've been, so I wanted to make Ignatius exist so I could use his paralogue (which IIRC is the one child character paralogue that's recommended to do relatively early instead of later on) to get people's levels a bit higher.

Dunno when I'll get round to actually continuing Fates, though. I could barely remember how to play the bloody game, which makes me glad for the trend of people making Their Castles easy to seize! (If anything, if I do go back to Fates, I might start a new file for Birthright and make progress there before picking my Conquest run back up.)

It's just funny to me that, with so much going away along with the 3DS's online functionality -- with plenty I'll miss and things I straight-up missed out on like SoV's DLC -- this of all things was what I really wanted to achieve before the deadline!

I think my fannishness for the Star Ocean series might make a huge comeback relatively soon.

Why? Because I happened to get the new SO2 remake for the Switch as one of my Christmas presents this year -- which was unexpected, but certainly a pleasant surprise. I still have my copy of the PSP version, where I'd gotten close to the end of a playthrough with Claude before, but I think this'll be a good way to both have a fresh experience of the game and finally play Rena's side of the story!

It's rekindled my feelings for the series to the point where I've now bought the R version of SO1 on the eShop (with a bonus being that I'd accumulated enough points to get it for essentially free while it's on sale)! Not only that, but since I recently got a PS4, I'm finally in a position where I can play SO5 and SO6 for the first time... and as it so happens, the HD remasters of SO3 and SO4 are on sale right now too, so I might go ahead and get those while they've got money off! The whole dang series on modern-ish consoles!

I won't get to any of them right away, though. First I want to beat Mario Wonder, and then I want to have another go at Iron Leaves in Pokémon Violet now that's come back round, and then I want to finish Virche Evermore (I've been on a bit of an otome kick in the last few months), and then I'd like to do some more routes in Olympia Soirée, and I'll want to jump back to Pokémon Violet again when the DLC's epilogue drops in a couple of weeks' time... in other words, I've got things I want to do in other games beforehand. Still, once I've done all that I'd really like to jump back into the good ol' ocean of stars. :3

I'll most likely play SO1 R first, as one playthrough of that shouldn't take too long, and then I'll go for SO2 R. I'll be looking forward to meeting my favourite characters again, and getting to know people in SO2 I didn't recruit before!

Not only is Yunaka one of my favourite characters in Engage, but I ship her around like a starry parcel. Seriously, out of all her support options, it would be easier to count the characters I don't ship her with!

Meanwhile, I'm a total slowpoke compared with the rest of the playerbase; I only completed Chapter 19 (which was a bit of a doozy) the other day, and right now I'm just knocking out paralogues and finally starting on the DLC paralogues before I carry on with the main story. I'm kind of aiming to do everything I want to do in this game in the one savefile.

Got Fire Emblem Engage!

First impressions will come later as I've only just beaten Chapter 2's map so far, but for now I'll just say that the OP song is shounen as heck and kind of charming for it.

Picked girl!Alear, by the way.

Pokémon Violet GET! \o/

I've literally just started playing, and I've spent most of my first couple of hours wandering around and catching a bunch of Pokémon before the first Centre, but I'm having fun already. :3

I chose Fuecoco as my starter, by the way.

I can't believe "Toothpaste Emblem" turned out to be real. ^^; I'd seen the leak for it before, but had never been sure how to take it. It's coming out surprisingly soon, too... I'll see how it is, though I'll miss Fódlan and I was honestly sad to not see anything about Hopes DLC.

In other news, yay Rain Code, yay new Octopath Traveler, and yay for the new Zelda game finally having an actual title to go with its release date.

Before I jump back into Hopes for Azure Gleam, I'm having a little poke at Houses again. Can't believe my Silver Snow run has been stalled for about two years now... I might at least finish Chapter 3 before moving on, but I think first I'd have to brush up on the free battles so I can remember How To Strategy. ^^;

For now I'm just revisiting some old support conversations in the support log -- starting with a few of Ashe's, as it's been so long and I'm not picking him up in Houses again until the next run, whenever that'll ever happen. (That next run would be a second go through Crimson Flower, by the way. Not sure if I already said it before, but hey.)

I'd forgotten just how sweet the entire Ashe/Dedue chain was. Their A-rank especially is beautiful. ;.;

Rewatched Ashe/Marianne and what I got of Ashe/Petra as well. The latter is pretty cute, and I'm a bit sad I didn't get to finish it in my CF run. I'll definitely get that A+ next time.

Note to self: definitely also rewatch Yuri/Bernadetta C and Constance/Mercedes C, as they both showed lots of promise and I think I was even on the verge of already unlocking Coco/Mercie B in the current playthrough. Okay, rewatched those C-ranks now.

I've seen I was about to unlock Ignatz/Mercedes C, too, which I was looking forward to two years ago and still look forward to now. In the first place, getting a bunch of nice supports I hadn't seen before was one of the motivations I had to get through this route despite not looking forward to it at all...

Just reached the final chapter in the Scarlet Blaze route of Three Hopes! Finally! \o/

I'm also finally free from support-grinding hell! I've unlocked every single support conversation I can in this route! Grinding so much for those honestly started to get a bit tedious towards the end, especially when a certain latecomer has so many, but I'm glad I did get 'em all. It means I've only got one or two loose ends to tie up before I go into the final battle.

It's been a ride, that's for sure -- especially in the last couple of chapters!

Aiming to finish SB Chapter 12 today tomorrow, heatwave be damned. Just need to finish another paralogue and spend all my activity/training points beforehand.

( Late-game mechanic talk; brief mention of major story spoilers )

Just cleared SB Chapter 10! \o/

Those in the know are free to take bets before looking under the cut...

( Major spoilers for Three Hopes )

Hopefully I can start picking up the pace a bit playing the rest of the route, now there's getting to be less grinding for supports outside of a few characters.

Finally about to do the main story battle in SB Chapter 8, and it's another one that's making me a bit nervous just looking at the initial map before actually starting. Mind you, a lot of levels throughout the franchise (and in a bunch of other games for that matter) look intimidating at first but then turn out to be not so terrible to actually do, so I'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, there's a couple of supports that are bugging me right now.

( Spoilers? )

Better try and fight on next...