We picked up Fez this week as I was highly anticipating the game for some time. I have to admit that there was several times where I just sat back and thought...wow...this game is so cool. The world is filled with charm and life and it is an immense pleasure to wander around and discover the love that has been poured into it. Collecting cube pieces and enjoying the music while having fun with the ability to destroy the z-axis is oh-so satisfying. There really is a lot to cherish about it despite some of the puzzles being mind-blowingly difficult. No. Perhaps because some of the puzzles are so insane, it only serves to accentuate the charm.

The thing about these puzzles is that they don't help you AT ALL. There are NO hints, just you, Gomez and the ambiance. If you are lucky, you may have a chirping bird, cute cat and butterfly or rockin' spinning turtle to keep you company as you try, seemingly in vain, to figure out what exactly you are missing. Just in the same way that Gomez must be impossibly perplexed by the concept of a third dimension, so too do you feel your brain hemorrhaging as you try and wrap your mind around how to put all the clues, or non-clues, together.

They tease at your soul, making you wonder...what the hell is the point of this room? You check the map and you know you haven't discovered everything. There are some cryptic ciphers on the bell and you have no real idea on how to solve them. An owl statue perches there, laughing at your fruitless efforts. You sit there...you want so badly to collect all the anti-cubes, but you don't want to cop-out and go to Gamefaqs and admit defeat. You can't let the game win...but you also must restore balance, the cube demands it.

You sit in the room and the midnight darkness that was once dusk now evolves into the early morning. You can hear the early bird chirping and you have watched Gomez fall asleep more times than you care to admit as you try to think about all the different possibilities that could lead to you getting that next coveted blue cube. You may even try to stab randomly at the puzzle, hoping for a lucky break. Hell, it worked for me on the pyramid floating in water. I just randomly pressed the triggers in some random sequence...and what do you know! Anti-cube! What the hell man? Now I want to figure it out even more so I can deduce what sort of mad sequence I put in at random to get an anti-cube I certainly didn't deserve.

Anyways, sorry about the lack of a Dragon Quest/Warrior post last week. Having gotten virtually all the Kickstarter packages out, we were pretty exhausted and just needed some time to veg. Pie did write up a post though, which you can find below.

Hello All! Bear and I couldn't get around to writing a post about last week's comic, Vocation Rotation so I will be doing so now!~ The comic is about the seventh installment of the ever famous turn-based, random encounter, RPG series by Square Enix, Dragon Quest. One of the big features of Dragon Quest 7 is that it sports a job change system, allowing players to try different strategies and styles for your party of rag-tag adventurers to battle. You learn spells and skills to add to your arsenal through leveling Jobs. You are limited with only a few jobs once the option is available, but you can unlock new ones by leveling different combinations. Not only are you able to choose common jobs like warrior and cleric, but if you're lucky and acquire a monster heart, you can choose a "monsters job" in which you will learn the monsters' abilities and take on their attributes. Like the normal jobs, more monster jobs open up as you level different combinations!

I was really excited when I first learned about the job system in Dragon Quest 7 after receiving it as a present back in 2001; but you don't get the ability to job change for a while. This game SERIOUSLY requires the player to have a LOT of patience. From the start of the game, you won't be expected to reach your first battle until two hours into the game; it's estimated that the job change aspect doesn't open up until FIFTEEN hours in. I remember being VERY driven and anxious to get to the job change part, but I guess I just wasn't driven enough because I never made it. I got stuck around twelve hours in and never went back. The game was pretty fun and had its charms, but it's just not enough for me, especially considering how many more interesting games there are out there.

I can't say that I've ever been really big into the Dragon Quest franchise. Though I never passed 3, I liked it; I think mainly because I really loved the manga based around the game called Dragon Quest: Emblem of Roto and because, on a very basic scale, you got to create all the characters in your party. There's just something really fun about making characters and letting your imagination fill in the blanks on what kind of people they are. XD I was interested in 8 too, but just never got very far. I think a big part of why I kinda have trouble getting into DQ games is because of how little character interaction there seems to be. I think it might not be so bad if the characters are your own creation, but it's just something else when they're presented to you premade with a simple back story, and seldom have any flavorful dialogue for most of the journey. I suppose it's just one of those things where you're just supposed to use your imagination. '_' Another aspect of the series that I can't get into is the music, though the battle tunes may be catchy, most of any music I hear in DQ games are too docile and soothing for me. >.<

Anyhow, I suppose one of the things I really like about DQ is the art and its designs! XD I love how all the monsters and characters have a really strong art style and flavor. XD I also love how a lot of the monsters look so cartoony and more mischievous and silly than "evil," and how they're so beautifully drawn and animated in later games. =) I can't help but to admire them every time!~