I'm currently ready to tackle the four-wing version of Ethereal Queen in the second iteration of the post-game dungeon of Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness on PlayStation 4. I was a little nervous doing the Anima fight again, but I did clear it on my first attempt. Also managed to have all my party members alive by the end of the battle, unlike my first victory against them. Again, I only got one Moonstone, which sucks, but I'm still not sweating it. Gathering all the needed Orichalcum to make every Item Creation recipe is the bigger pain, and if I actually accomplished that prior to having all the Moonstones I need, I could just use Synthesis to turn any extra Orichalcum into Moonstones. The Orichalcum is also more annoying because, by the time you have enough to make all these different recipes, you'll probably already have the weapons they make, so there's not much reward in it. With the Moonstones, you can at least use Synthesis to make each character's strongest weapon, and since only one Item Creation recipe requires one Moonstone, I've used the additional ones I've received so far to make a couple of those.
All that said, I've put another pause on Star Ocean because I'm sick for the third time since late September, ugh. Such is life as a parent. So, out of my desire to play something more basic, I started up Game & Watch Gallery 2 on my Game Boy Advance SP. I've ended with the second, third, and fourth games in the series (not counting the Game Boy Gallery game released only in PAL regions), despite never intentially aiming to collect them, and, until now, never gave any of them much time, partially because I figured there was nothing to do in them but try to improve your scores. Now that I know there's stuff to unlock and that you can earn a credits roll and "beat" the game, it's more interesting to me. Though, it's still just a matter of scoring high enough in each variation of each game. I like that the game also goes into the history of the Game & Watch series, which I know little about. I mean, I know some bits of historicial info, like the D-pad originating with the series, but I've never owned any of them and, to the best of my recollection, have never once played one, though I did own some Tiger handhelds and what have you. I've played a little of every game on Game & Watch Gallery 2 now, and I can see why there are people nostalgic about these games. As simple as they are, some of them are pretty addicting, both the Modern versions and Classic versions. I think I like Helmet and Vermin best so far. Parachute is decent too. I'm still trying to get the hang of Modern Chef. Managing both Peach and Yoshi simultaneously throws me off. I haven't figured out Donkey Kong at all yet. I'm not sure what exactly I have to do to progress after flipping the switch. It also throws me off that Mario snaps from spot to spot, instead of the smooth movement in arcade Donkey Kong. Which you'd think I'd be fine with, considering I played a ton of the Coleco Donkey Kong tabletop back in the day, but I guess I gotta reacclimate.
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