Connor's Video Game Musings

    Dragon Quest III is the game where the Dragon Quest series becomes undeniably good. While I enjoyed my time with the first game, it's incredibly bare-bones and dated and the second game was fine up until the final hours. Both games I could only recommend with caveats and even then only to those who like classic JRPGs or are hardcore Dragon Quest fans. Dragon Quest III meanwhile is a fantastic JRPG I can easily recommend to anyone. It builds upon the foundations of the previous games while also avoiding the balancing mistakes of the second game to create a wholly realized experience. Unlike the first two however, Dragon Quest III's remakes add a substantial amount that as far as I know wasn't there in the original release. Where the remakes of the first two added simple quality-of-life improvements like a vault to store items in, III's remakes add entirely new mechanics that can radically alter how you play. The Switch version also adds a mechanic that I'm certai

    When I purchased Dragon Quest I off the Nintendo eShop, I snatched up Dragon Quest II at the same time because I figured with how old and cheap the first game is I'd beat it quickly. About 4 hours later, my intuition turned out to be correct. Originally released in 1987, roughly 10 months after the first one, Dragon Quest II sought to expand upon the foundations of the first one, adding meat to the first game's bare-bones structure, and in the process created one of the most frustrating JRPGs ever made. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Dragon Quest II takes place a hundred years after the events of the first game. The evil wizard Hargon has ordered a campaign of evil upon the land, sacking the city of Moonbrooke. You play as the Prince of Midenhall, a direct descendant of the hero from the first game, who goes on a journey across the land to stop Hargon. Along the way, he is joined by his cousins, the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke, making Dragon Quest

 Dragon Quest is one of those series whose influence is somehow both understated and yet overwhelming. The series has directly led to the creation of some of the most celebrated games ever made such as Final Fantasy and Mother/EarthBound and is still insanely popular in Japan, though it probably isn't as well-known as other popular JRPGs here in the States, especially when games like Persona and the aforementioned FF series have become juggernauts even in the West. And yet the series keeps on trucking, remaining a smash hit JRPG series in Japan and enjoying success among its rabid American fanbase. It's a series that had been in my periphery for a very long time. About a year ago, the first three games were released on Switch and I figured that with the re-release, now would be as good a time as any to dive into this venerated franchise.    It's important to note that the Switch remakes are based on the IOS and Android remakes, which a lot of fans take umbrage to because th

 Well, here I am after 2 years. I guess I have commitment issues. And speaking of commitment issues, let's talk backlog. Most of us have a backlog of games we want to get to someday but we just keep pushing to the back for whatever reason, be it real life or something else catching our eye. The other week I finally sat down and beat one particular game that had been sitting in my backlog that I'm surprised I hadn't beaten way sooner. You've read the title, you know which game it is.     This one is particularly sad in my case because it's only about 3 hours.   I first bought The Old Blood several years ago on PS4. It serves as an expansion pack for 2014's Wolfenstein: The New Order, itself one of my personal favorite first-person shooters. For some reason though I would always drop the game halfway through, either because of burnout after playing through TNO and then Old Blood or because the console controls start to wear on me. Then within the last year after I

I love the Max Payne trilogy. Whenever I'm feeling down or in need of some excitement, I boot up the original game and weeks later find myself viewing the credits of the third game with HEALTH's brilliant "Tears" playing. For some reason, it's one of the only series I enjoy playing back to back. All three games are short but amazing third-person shooters with excellent stories, and at the center of it all is Max Payne himself, a dark, brooding vigilante, like if the Punisher had more of a conscience. I want to explore what it is that makes these games tick, and why they stick out in my mind after so many playthroughs and so many hours poured into three short games. And what better way to start than with the original game? I can't remember exactly when I started playing Max Payne . All I remember is seeing various YouTubers examine the game, most notably Caddicarus's (Caddicarus'?) retrospective on the game. Looking back, he was pretty ina