My love for OTB has escalated into an ungodly obsession: I find myself
gorging on it more and more and trying to sneak in playing sessions everywhere
I can. Generations wax and wane, dungeons are conquered and bosses are
vanquished as in-game years and real-life hours go by, and I'm inching ever
closer to the final showdown.
"Inching" is the right word indeed. Even after an undisclosed by the
game yet probably ludicrously high number of playing hours, I still have a hard
time dealing with, well, time management. Bloody time management, which coerces
me into a given course of action when I'd rather be doing something else. So
you want to vanquish an Oni boss? Oops, they haven't reappeared yet — better
luck next time! You want to explore the depths of a dungeon? Nope, you
have to breed and train your kids — come back in three months! You want to
tackle a Feast? Too bad, you didn't transmigrate Nueko early enough — try again
next year! You want to do anything that requires a couple of months at a
time? Crap, your clan leader is about to bite the dust, and you have to prepare
succession — come back in one bloody generation! It took me forever to
clear the third Feast, because I could never find that sweet spot where
everybody was prepped up and with enough life expectancy to pull it off. My
family members were too young or too old, or there was not enough time to
transmigrate and train Nueko, or some mandatory breeding was standing in the
way; I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the planets finally aligned
and I got my opportunity to strike, let me tell you that.
After being done with that third Feast at long last, I took myself some time to
breath, regroup and map out my objectives for the next couple of generations.
Waiting for that perfect blink of an eye to fight Seimei took a toll on my
gaming morale, and I feel the need to forget about that cursed immortal for a
while and unwind through other pursuits. Here's my plan for the next in-game
decade:
1-Explore dungeons at leisure and to my heart's content. I finally saved
enough money to get my paws on that famed wooden tag, the one that grants you
access to a room containing all the game's keys in the Garden of Purrfection;
all said keys are now in my possession, and no dungeon can resist me anymore.
This is actually both a blessing and a curse: while it's great not to worry
about keys anymore, this also means that the game's natural difficulty curve is
destroyed, leaving me free to bump into foes far too strong for my clan's
current level. (Of course, that makes for good power-leveling as well — before
I scurry away after three battles to lick my gaping wounds, that is.) Anyway,
since the game was kind enough to offer me brand-new dungeons after the third
Feast, I'm definitely going to explore them, and thoroughly at that. We don't
want to be called ungrateful, now do we?
2-Get my paws on Heirlooms. Now that I don't have to save one million
ryōs anymore, I can treat my clan to those insanely expensive pieces of gear.
The town's development level has a direct influence on the quality of the
Heirlooms, so I'll start by raising my Weapon and Armour shops' levels. A bit
of careful observation conveniently revealed that Heirloom stats vary between
clan members, but also from month to month; so I'm gonna bide my time in the
shadows and pounce when an Heirloom with stellar stats appear.
3-Follow my breeding instinct. I focused primarily on gods with good
Fire genes during the early stages of my run, and it worked nicely for me.
Lately though, I've been following Kochin's advice more often, just to see if
the little weasel was indeed breeding-wise; but alas, it didn't work too great.
I can tell that Kochin suggested gods whose gene pools would rectify the huge
Fire imbalance in my clan and make my gene pool more harmonious; and while I
can see the merits of such an approach, the result doesn't suit my playing
style at all. I ended up with weaklings that cannot one-slice rows of foes
without breaking a sweat like their ancestors did, and that's not what I signed
for. Starting next generation, I'm ignoring Kochin's advice and following my
mating instinct again.
4-Expand my Skill pool. While my clan's Fire expertise is nicely
developed, they are stuck at the very first Skill level in all other elements
despite owning scrolls for high-level Skills. I'm going to remedy that sorry
state of affairs by making good use of the Mind and Heart-raising accessories.
I've experimented a bit with them and noticed that if you equip them and let a
month pass, your clan members will learn Skills if their boosted Mind/Heart is
high enough to hit requirements. That's already pretty nifty, but there's
something even niftier: take away the accessory, and the newly acquired Skills
remain! Needless to say, I'm going to use and abuse that feature without a
second thought. It's built into the game, so it's not cheating, is it? If I'm
lucky, I may also learn a couple of Secret Arts in the process.
In other words, I'm gonna roam&grind like there's no tomorrow, because
that's exactly what the aforementioned pursuits imply. Seimei can wait until
I'm in the mood to confront him again; a couple of years sure don't mean
anything for an immortal prick like him, do they? See you soon for the next
chapter of my OTB epopee, dear fellow gamers; and as usual, thanks a lot
for stopping by!
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