Semantic Nonsense: I Confess

Well, it didn’t take me long to screw up my plans for this year.

I’ve been fending off the Persona bug ever since I blasted my way through Persona 4 Golden last year. It took some willpower to stay on task, but did a reasonable enough job closing out the year. However, the drains on my willpower kept manifesting. 

In December, I really got the bug to replay Parasite Eve. I forced myself not to because I thought it would be a good idea to restream it, given that the old VODs are incomplete and horribly dated. I tried to scratch the itch by watching speedruns and by doing my best Roll Caskett as a spotter for another streamer’s first trip up the game’s bonus dungeon. It only put fuel on the fire and I more-or-less forced myself to continue as planned. 

Following that up with a complete reinvention of my eating habits with strict enforcement was all the more draining, and a persistent drain at that. By the time I came home from a trip to see my family last week and cramming 5 days of work into 3, the dam was ready to burst. The next time the Persona bug stung me, I gave in to temptation. Instead of using the long weekend to kick-off The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker as planned, I’m now nearly three months (game time) into Persona 5 Royal.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t risking disappointing Magnus who I gave the option of choosing this year’s gaming catch-up focus. The same Magnus who, when he visited last spring, devoted one of the evenings to planting me in front of the TV and making dam sure I played 6 hours of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to make sure I understood full well what I was missing by not getting around to it. I suppose in retrospect it should have been obvious which game franchise he was going to select from my backlog.

While I may yet avoid making myself a liar by returning to Zelda once Royal has ended, starting a 150ish hour RPG so close to February is likely to cause collateral damage anyway. Perhaps I’ll do 4 in April instead?

This would not be the first time I disappointed Magnus so, and a guilty habit it has been. Some years ago, he was very keen for me to play Dragon Quest V after the Nintendo DS version hit the shelves. At the time, I had already played the first three games, and put of V because I may as well play IV first. That plan got interrupted by Dragon Quest IX ‘s release, which was an excused out-of-order play given that Magnus and I could partake in its multiplayer features. And then, as you may recall, I spent 600 hours in Dragon Quest IX chasing accolades rather than using that time to play every other game in the series with plenty of hours to spare. Some good did come of it, as the experience did kill my completionism dead.

So here I am, at the start of the journey to another overly long review post sometime in the future. Whether it will become the wings of rebellion that breaks the chains of captivity remains to be seen.

In any case, here’s my progress report after the long weekend, in the style I shared with previous Personae in the Discord’s #gaming_progress channel:

6/20 – Level 23 – requests 7/8

Knowledge 3, Guts 3, Proficiency 2, Kindness 3, Charm 2

Fool 5
Magician 3
Priestess undiscovered
Empress undiscovered
Emperor undiscovered
Hierophant 4
Lovers 4
Chariot 5
Justice 2
Hermit undiscovered
Fortune undiscovered
Strength 4
Hanged Man undiscovered
Death 7
Temperance 3
Devil undiscovered
Tower undiscovered
Star undiscovered
Moon 4
Sun 3
Judgment undiscovered
Faith 2
Councilor 4