[Business Day One] Level 99
Some of my favorite memories of my childhood involve laying on my bedroom floor, with my head and shoulders against a bean bag chair, and playing Final Fantasy VI. For hours on end after my homework was done, I’d lead my party into a desert or a field somewhere and just level up. For those unfamiliar with the process, let me give you a run down. A lot of role-playing games from that era (the mid-90s) followed a fairly straight-forward story arc. Your main character would get a team together, go on a journey, battle villains along the way, learn some lessons and eventually confront the Main Bad Guy in an epic final battle. The fine folks that programmed these games made assumptions about how strong your team would be (i. ??????? e. what level they were at) at any given point in the game and adjusted the relative difficulty of the villains accordingly. So, at the beginning of the game, you’d come across angry slime piles that would pose a challenge to a Level 5 team. At the halfway point, there’d be roving bandits that would threaten a Level 30 team. By the end, you’re throwing down with stone golems that’d give a Level 55 team the business. ??????? ????????? What I used to do is spend hours battling in minor skirmishes to built up my team’s level far beyond where the programmers figured I’d be at each step. So I’d be slaying those slime piles with all my heroes at Level 10, dispatching bandits at Level 45 and crushing golems effortlessly at level 70. I loved to be one step ahead of the game. I loved it to the point where I’d spent 15 or 20 hours over the course of my week walking back and forth in a forest fighting tree elves to level up. There’s just something about utter dominance over an enemy force that is so darned fun. ????? ??? ????
I suppose that’s why I am gleeful over the Patriots season. It’s like they spent an entire weekend outside of Figaro Castle before their Week 1 game and have just been riding since then at a level unforseen by the programmers. Read More
I titled this post as “Boston edition,” but it’s not like there’s going to be another edition. I live in Boston and root for Boston teams. Then again, there is always the hope that someone else here will be a fan of another team and write a competing entry.
lucky to be able to say that. I have my health, I get a paycheck and my family loves me. It is wonderful to think that my lowlight of the past 10 months is a game played by teenagers. Still, it doesn’t make it hurt any less.