the man on the moon rules the infinite time

hello, it's me.

i haven't wanted to update lately because frankly my mental health has been Not Great. i have not accomplished much of anything past playing too much final fantasy xiv. which, i've gotten some of my long-term goals done there (i finished the pteranodon grind at last, for example), but it's come at the cost of playing anything else. so much for my goal of one jrpg a month... june went by without me touching anything but ffxiv, alas. as much as i'd like to continue the trails series, i've had no will whatsoever to work on playing them.

at least i've been reading again. i stalled out reading a few months ago; despite enjoying the book i was reading, i got into a slump and couldn't pick it back up. in an effort to get back to reading something, i started rereading a bunch of ff7 longfics i had saved on my kindle, and it's helped me to get back into it. hopefully i can return to published fiction soon.

in more positive news, my gsc lightning figure finally arrived yesterday, and she's gorgeous.

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i'm over the moon. the pose is based on one of my favorite lightning artworks ever (see icon) and to have it as a physical piece in my apartment makes me so happy. she's a lot bigger than i expected, even having read the product description. she's alone on the shelf right now because i have yet to unpack the rest of my lightning figures, but hopefully i can get to that soon. (at one point i had a complete collection of lightning figures; i no longer do, but i have most of them.)

anyway, that's about it for now. it's been rough lately; i just haven't had the will to do much other than mindlessly play ffxiv. it's a comfort game for a reason, but, uh, there comes a point where it's too much. so wish me luck, i suppose.

a few years ago i came across a youtube video; i don't remember the creator or i'd link it. anyway, it was a reflection on a figure and review. the figure in question was this one of ayesha from atelier ayesha, and the youtuber talked about how they'd had to scour sites online to get it many years after it came out. (for those not into figure collecting, most figures are only produced once at scale, and the aftermarket can get very expensive.)

anyway, i'd never played an atelier game, but i was intrigued that this youtuber had gone to such lengths for this figure in particular. i started looking into atelier ayesha, reading reviews, asking friends if they'd played it, even watching gameplay overviews. this is more deliberation than i usually do before i buy a game, but i wanted to be sure i'd enjoy it. shortly afterwards it went on sale for $20 and i picked it up. i played the first 30 minutes of the game, was not immediately compelled, and set it down.

as i mentioned in the last post, i finished clair obscur ahead of my so-called schedule for the year (one rpg per month). not wanting to dive into trails of cold steel right away and also wanting to save money, i picked atelier ayesha back up.

i am now about 5 hours in, and i don't like this game.

the story, which is what draws me to the vast majority of games, is thin. the characters are stock tropes with little to compel me about them. the alchemy part of the gameplay is fine, i suppose, but i'm following a guide since i get stressed out by timers in games, so it's much less natural and spontaneous. the battles are... fine. there's nothing particularly innovative about this particular turn-based rpg.

now, admittedly, i did just come off a very good game, so anything i played next was going to pale in comparison, but wow, i don't like this one! it's really the writing that's getting me: ayesha is not a strong enough character to base the story around. her writing lacks the spark that's drawn me to so many other characters. the stakes in this game aren't high, which i knew going in, but oof. it's not even that i dislike a low-stakes story — trails in the sky fc was like that, and i loved that aspect of the game. but ayesha simply has no presence, and the game really depends on you caring about her.

so now i'm at an impasse: do i continue the game and push through to see if i like it more, or do i accept the loss of my $20 and move on with my life? logic leans towards the latter, of course. but atelier ayesha is a 20-30 hour game, so i'm already through a decent chunk of it. i don't really have much else that's short that i could squeeze into the rest of this month. it's finish this, or move on to cold steel already.

i was hoping writing this post would help me decide, but it hasn't, LOL. honestly i might give atelier ayesha a few more play sessions to win me over... but i've been sitting down to play it and picking up final fantasy xiv instead, so that tells you how i feel about it right now, lol. i went to the diadem for an hour last night instead of playing ayesha. for those who don't play ffxiv, this means i voluntarily went to a zone where all you can do is fly in a circle and hit rocks to gather materials over and over again. that was more compelling to me than playing ayesha, so like, oof.

anyway, the title of this post is very intentional. i really try not to buy games i won't like, and i feel like i need to get my money's worth out of them regardless. but i know deep down it's a fallacy and i'm just digging the hole deeper. i just need to convince myself of it.

this will be a shorter post, i think; i have less to say this time.

everything else will be behind the cut!

( musing on act 2 so far )