A Hunting We Will Go

Ok, so I wanted to take a little time to talk about PSO because it's my blog and you're not the boss of me.

Way back in the early 2000's, I got a Sega Dreamcast. The system was way ahead of it's time and I'm being serous, guiz.

It had awesome graphics, except for Sonic Adventure 1... Let's not talk about that.

It had fucking online play built in. Online. Play. As in with other people. However, not having decent internet at the time forced me to play games by myself. Which was cool, because I hate people.

I got PSO version 2 at the swap meet across the street for like $5 and I made my first character named KNUCKLES. All caps for some reason. He was a HUmar, or male human hunter for all you pleb losers. He was dressed in all black with red hair, because you don't get much more edgy than that.

I played the fuck out of PSO. I murdered the shit out of dragons, De Rol Leses, Dark Falzes, whatever the plural for Rappy is. I was a shit murdering level 120- something machine. Then the unthinkable happened...

My Dreamcast memory card fucked up and erased all my progress. I was crushed. My beautiful KNUCKLES. Gone. Just like that. Fuck this shit.

I didn't play that game until my friend Manaseph got a GameCube and finally saw the glory of PSO on split screen.

Mana, my brother Kisho and I played all the time. It was fucking awesome playing PSO split screen with other actual people, even though I said I hate people but fuck you anyways.

PSO was a very simple game, but well executed. Murder monster to get better gear and level up so you can murder harder monsters. It's genius was in the simplicity. And nothing since FFXI had come close to that sense of wonderment and excitement as you murder shit in like,  a cave or something.

Yes, I tried playing PSO2, that is after I downloaded the Japanese launcher and switched out a million files for a broken English patch. It was a cute game. Very... Japanese. Anime. Kawaiii sugoi desu. But despite all the advancements, the game lacked something that made the first one great. That whole feeling of comradery and adventure.

Sure, you could jump. And they had more than 3 faces to choose from. But the multiplayer aspect was seriously lacking. I ran hundreds of... dungeons I guess? Fields? And I never met anyone that didn't feel like I was just playing with AI. I don't know how to explain it... fuck you, that's how.

I hate people but love playing games with people.

I'm a complex individual.

:)