Day 92, Game 92 - Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention

Well folks ... I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack. Miss me? Probably not, since I managed to keep up on my blog, even while I was away, enjoying a nice, long vacation in the Happiest Place on Earth - Disneyland. My family and I had an amazing time, and it was so fantastic to treat the kids to such an epic vacation. Aside from formatting issues and the lack of automatic tweeting for each update, I think posting blogs from my phone worked out pretty well. And thanks to handheld gaming, I was able to fulfill my gaming quota easily. I even got more recreational gaming in than I anticipated before going into the trip, which was nice.

While traveling all around Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks, I carried my 3DS around with me at all times, in the back pack, in hopes of StreetPassing. Well, mission accomplished I can proudly say, as every time I pulled it out to check, I had 10 StreetPasses it seemed. That means I got tons of puzzle pieces and beat quite a few dungeons in the Battle Mii mini game, all while filling in my map of territories of people who I've come across. While doing all this, I chose to put "www.thenoyse.com" as my greeting for everyone who StreetPassed me to see, and I can proudly say, my marketing campaigned worked - at least once. I got a comment on yesterday's blog post from a guy named John who StreetPassed me at Disneyland, and then promptly followed my greeting link to my website, and commented just to say hi. How cool is that!

So for my new StreetPass friend and blog reader, I say - HELLO, JOHN (in the green shirt with the Mario hat)!!!

Anyway, this morning we just relaxed until it was time to go. We slept in, we watched TV and pretty much did nothing as a way to decompress from the long, busy vacation. While laying in bed, I decided to pick up my almost completely neglected Vita and try out a free game I downloaded thanks to PS+ before we left for vacation, Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention. I knew going into this game that it was a JRPG, and while that is probably my second least favorite game genre (behind MMOs), I wanted to play it just to see if I had any more tolerance of the genre than I did before, especially with how much I enjoyed the little bit of Ni No Kuni that I played.

Let's just say, I feel the same now as I did back then.

I guess I just don't get JRPGs, nor do I have the patience for them. I totally understand why people love them, as you can completely immerse yourself in the experience. I just can't focus on them long enough to even grasp the game play or understand the complicated storyline. It also doesn't help when you jump into an already-established franchise that you have absolutely no knowledge of or connection to.

Playing Disgaea 3 just bored me to death. The story was uninteresting, and I just started skipping through it. The tutorial stage lasted way too long, and felt so overly complicated and daunting to learn that I found myself rushing through it in hopes of just learning on the fly. That was probably a bad decision, as once I started wondering around and actually encountered some battles, I felt helpless and vulnerable.

After about an hour of play time, I realized that this is definitely not a game for me. It doesn't nearly have the same charm or personality that Ni No Kuni does, which means that there is still some hope for me enjoying that game at least. But for Disgaea 3, I don't think I will be coming back to it.

Speaking of coming back, now that I am home, I have The Walking Dead season finale to watch and BioShock Infinite to play, so despite Disneyland being one of the most amazing experiences I have had with my family, I'm glad to be home.

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