PixlBit

You aren't alone Julian. I've always had a strange attraction to psychedelic stuff, so these games seemed like they would work. I figured I'd throw on some trippy music and just have a blast. No such luck. I tried to like Space Giraffe and Tempest but they just never did a thing for me. The art is cool, but I don't really enjoy the games. I haven't played this one, but I doubt it will really be that break through title for me either. Oh well.

Did I say quick? 'Cause what I really meant was long winded and rambling.

Quick DQ IX stuff.

I don't think the kids are ready for a JRPG that's this involved just yet, so this project isn't something that's going to happen, say, next week, but I still think it could happen.  I'm going to have to try and introduce them to some entry level JRPG stuff. Unfortunatly, they aren't into the Pokemon games as that would have been a great launching point, but I still think I can show them some things that get them acquainted with the concept. I still remember my childhood perspective of my first JRPG, which was the original Final Fantasy, and how I thought it looked completely lame to just pick things from a menu while there was a literal wall between your characters and the enemies. We'll see though.

For now, my wife has surprised me with how into this game she is.  I get emails from her all the time about it. It's striking how much of it she's able to figure out on her own, and what she needs help with. Concepts are clear as day, like developing multiple classes to use as the situation demands it, but mechanics are what she questions the most, like viewing and sorting items in the bag, using the Alchemy pot. She actually didn't know she could cast spells on the overworld map or change equipment in combat until I showed her how. I thought I'd get her into JRPGs with something like Lunar, seeing as how it's got that cute, almost Disney a la Japan vibe going on, but this is it. It's really fascinating.

This also kind of pounds a nail into the "casual gamer" argument's face. My wife is what many would consider to be a casual gamer. She's only really enjoyed Mario and "sim" games like Sim City 2000 until this point, along with the much reviled "facebook ville" games. I've told people that these games provide a bridge to more "hardcore" titles, like DQ, what with their leveling mechanics and focus on developing something (like a character, a farm, or a town,) but people don't buy it. Well, here's the proof suckers. She's stayed up until 3 AM completely obsessed with DQ IX and is far ahead of me in the game. She came to the title with a crystal clear understanding of leveling, grinding, experience points, and some aspects of managing statistics and is now building on this knowledge base with a hardcore title. I don't think this is the end of it either.

Want more proof? I just installed Age of Empires on her PC, and she's been toying around with that as well.  Yep, it works. 

You may have inadvertently given me a potential new PixlKids project in our recent twitter conversation. We'll have to see how it goes.

If I can be a hater for a moment; If you placed everything I despise about the modern video games into a room, I'm pretty sure what you describe is exactly what it would look like.

Am I the only one who really didn't like the Game Cube's controller? I dislike it for the same reason I don't like the Sega Genesis controller, I never liked having 3 buttons spread horizontally, and the Game Cube really felt like it did the same thing with the spread between B, A, and X.

As far as Kinect goes, I hate it too, but I felt it did do a pretty decent job of tracking your movements, as long as you set it up correctly, which is a pain and almost impossible for most people. The only time I've ever seen it work flawlessly is when a friend of mine used the track lighting in his living room like stage lighting to completely cover every single part of his body with light. (side note, his wife wasn't happy with the changed he made to the lighting when she got home.)

Class action lawsuits: This is bad bad bad bad bad. Honestly, it's not about the money, it's about protecting the consumer. As someone who has participated in a class action suit in the past, yes, the money I received was minimal, but it was the equivalent of a refund and a little more. The real satisfaction came from knowing the mega-corporation responsible had to pay for it's actions and would be unable to screw it's customers again in the same way. I don't really worry about Valve too much, as they've done right by their customers so far, but Microsoft and Sony also have worked this documentation into recent system updates, requiring their customers to surrender their rights to pursuing class action suits in order to continue using their services, and I trust both of them about as much as I trust my cat to watch my goldfish while I'm on vacation. I don't recall Nintendo issuing any documentation like this to their customers yet, but I'm sure their lawyers are drafting something up as we speak. It's just how things are moving these days, and I don't like it.

Would it be fair to say that this game is a lot like Etrian Odyssey, but lacking a lot of the characteristics and fine-tuning that makes those games play as well as they do? That's kind of what I'm getting out of this. It sounds like a game I'd play if I didn't already have so many other options that do the job so much better.

Glad you like it! This is an experiment of sorts, and if our readers find it interesting enough, I might branch out into other things like discussing how the children play classic games, and what sorts of things they enjoy. We'll see how it goes.

Well, I'm intrigued. I don't think I have time for this one, but if I had all the time in the world again, I'd probably grab it.

I think another benefit is that having foreknowledge of the music in it's context removes a barrier to appreciation. Simply put, you aren't distracted by mentally trying to put everything together.

When I was in high school, we took a field trip to the city to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. My family recommended that I listen to the opera before I go, which didn't make much sense at the time. In hindsight, being familiar with the music and story allowed me to appreciate the spectacle as a whole without being sidetracked by having to process the story and the music for the first time. It really helped, and it's something I've done ever since when going to see a show.