Monday, September 19, 2005

A day without internet

My internet disappeared today, and stayed away until just a little while ago. I have no idea why it stopped working, but eventually rebooting the router got it functioning again, thus saving Christmas. The end.

It wasn't all that bad because we had to drive to Quebec to pick up my sister. She's visiting friends and flying back to Calgary on wednesday, but had no way to get from Montreal to Ottawa on her own. We met her in Hudson and came back here, had dinner, and then she got picked up by her friend.

In the time tht wasn't spent travelling, I watched TV and played EarthBound. I stopped playing it last summer, so I had almost no memory of where I was or what I was in the process of doing, but I figured it out fairly quickly. I forget what all my items do, so there's going to be a fairly long period of reaquainting myself with the inventory, should I continue to play.

EarthBound, for those who don't know, is an RPG that was released on the SNES. A lot of people love it despite its admittedly poor graphics, because of the inventiveness of the story and combat system. Each character has very different combat options, from regular attacking and magic to praying, copying an enemy's attacks, and spying on an enemy's weaknesses. Just about any item can be used in combat, often with very handy effects (I like the slime generator, which sticks to an enemy and renders them immobile).

The damage system is another great aspect of the game. Your hit points are displayed as a set of numbers on wheels, and when you take damage it counts down instead of subtracting it all at once. This gives you some leeway because you can take critical damage and still get off your planned attack or heal before the character dies, or even finish the fight while the damage is still ticking away. Healing works the same way, so your health can be bouncing up and down constantly all fight, which does make combat a bit confusing, but as long as it's counting up you have nothing to worry about.

I can only recommend getting EarthBound for an emulator, since buying a copy of the game on ebay will run you over $100. A lot of people love this game, so prepare for a bidding war.

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