Well, I think I'm going to go with the "upgrade" option on my PC. It'll take a while and probably cause problems, but I just can't stand the idea of spending a month or more without my PC and then coming back to it being the same or worse.
Meanwhile, it's not like I don't have a PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, GBA, DS, Dreamcast, Pentium 100 running DOS, and Gamefly and Netflix subscriptions to keep me occupied.
Plus SG, of course.
Been playing Suikoden IV. Can't really see why so many people seem to dislike it. It doesn't quite live up to Suikoden II (still the best in the series, imho), and it drops one or two of Suikoden III's better ideas (like having protagonists who talk and have actual personalities.), but it brings all the usual Suikoden goodness to the table: 108 recruitable characters, multiple battle types, fast levelling to accomodate being able to switch between 50 or 60 different combat-capable characters. Side quests. Building up a home base with all the amenities. Teleportation. Granted, the random encounter rate's a bit annoying, but that's true in manymanymany RPGs, and it's still far less than FFVI (whose random encounters happened so often I quit playing in frustration.). And unlike those others, you can often knock your way through them in no time at all. The heavily naval flavor is, imho, much more interesting than the blandly generic Suikoden III setting, and I think the only really comparable RPG is Skies of Arcadia, where you fly rather than sail.
Though I'm still early, maybe the bad stuff is yet to come.
Meanwhile, it's not like I don't have a PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, GBA, DS, Dreamcast, Pentium 100 running DOS, and Gamefly and Netflix subscriptions to keep me occupied.
Plus SG, of course.
Been playing Suikoden IV. Can't really see why so many people seem to dislike it. It doesn't quite live up to Suikoden II (still the best in the series, imho), and it drops one or two of Suikoden III's better ideas (like having protagonists who talk and have actual personalities.), but it brings all the usual Suikoden goodness to the table: 108 recruitable characters, multiple battle types, fast levelling to accomodate being able to switch between 50 or 60 different combat-capable characters. Side quests. Building up a home base with all the amenities. Teleportation. Granted, the random encounter rate's a bit annoying, but that's true in manymanymany RPGs, and it's still far less than FFVI (whose random encounters happened so often I quit playing in frustration.). And unlike those others, you can often knock your way through them in no time at all. The heavily naval flavor is, imho, much more interesting than the blandly generic Suikoden III setting, and I think the only really comparable RPG is Skies of Arcadia, where you fly rather than sail.
Though I'm still early, maybe the bad stuff is yet to come.