Ah, the good old days

If you don't see me on my Xbox over the next couple of days don't panic. I'm still here. I'm just reliving some of the old days and playing on my PS2. Something I haven't done in a long time.

You see I've really been in an RPG kind of mood lately. I've got several RPGs for the Xbox but for most of them I'm having a hard time reading the font on the screen. I don't know what it is about RPGs on the Xbox but it seems the developers are using the smallest font possible for the stats and menus. I don't know how many times I had a character die in Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon all because I couldn't read their HP stats to know they were in trouble. But as much as I loved those games my frustration level was much higher. Now, I can appreciate the developers not wanting to fill up the screen with text (except during the dreams in Lost Odyssey) but at least make it readable on a standard TV . . . and by people with bad eyes.

Instead of letting my frustration overwhelm my desire to play an RPG I decided Sunday night to reconnect my PS2 and get back into playing Final Fantasy VII. That is the one official New Year's Resolution that I haven't achieved yet this year. It had been so long since I played that game I wondered if I would remember even how to play.

The first thing I had to get use to was the controller. Something that previously seemed like an extension of my own hands felt awkward and clumsy when I first picked it up. It felt small and insubstantial compared to the Xbox 360 controller. It took awhile to get use to but old habits never seem to go away.

Another thing I noticed was that my PS2 makes more noise than my Xbox 360 does. And it takes longer to boot up. But on the other hand I didn't have to log in to start playing the game.

Once I got into the game it didn't take me long to figure out what to do and where I was in the story. And compared to the font sizes in the 360 games the font size in Final Fantasy VII was HUGE! I could read it even without my contacts or glasses. That's such a nice thing for my tired eyes. I could play for hours without having to strain just to see what's on the TV. There was no danger of my characters dying because I couldn't see their hit points (Cait Sith did die at one point but that's because the enemy did a suicide drop on Cait to end the battle so it's totally not my fault--and yes I play with Cait Sith in my part . . . sometimes).

It's nice to get back to the good old days of playing video games. I don't know how long this will last but maybe I can really book it through FF7 and try another couple of games before the urge to go back to my 360 overtakes me. Who knows, but with these feelings of nostalgia I might even go back to my N64 or Super Nintendo or give in to the longings to play Pikmin on my Game Cube. Ah, those were the good old days.