Play at Work returns

Since I lost my iPhone, I've had some major problems playing anything while at work. I was out of suitable RPGs on my handheld systems, and it would be hard to sneak a physical console into my office (although, since I have 2 monitors I would be able to make it look an awful lot like work... maybe that's a plan for 2012). As luck would have it, work had ended up being pretty busy over the last few months, but we're back sitting firmly in the slow period between Thanksgiving and the first week or so in January. Really, if our clients are all on vacation, we don't have much to do but look busy. I'm really good at that.

As a result, I was looking at my remaining DS/PSP games to see if I had anything that might work for short burst gaming while I am in my office waiting around for anything to happen. I have decided to try playing a Final Fantasy 7 : Crisis Core because it has enough slower exploration parts, and it pauses during the action scenes so that I won't miss anything when someone catches me not working and I have to hide the PSP for 30 minutes.

I bought Crisis Core well before the backlog started. I'm pretty sure I grabbed it for some trip to Maine or Florida, and it seemed like a no-brainer at the time. It's a Final Fantasy, in the same universe as FF7-- a game that was a little overrated, but at the same time was the last Final Fantasy I had even liked at that point in time. I played it for a total of two hours that trip, because I immediately didn't like it. It wasn't what I expected at all, and what it is I didn't have the patience then to really try to understand.

I should have done a little more research (or any research) beforehand, because while this is a Final Fantasy game, it's not a traditional one by any means. It's really a solo player (not party-based) action game with some RPG elements thrown in. To make it worse, it's Square Enix RPG elements, so it's not just leveling or equipment-- instead it has to be bizarre. In this case, all your leveling is done via a constantly spinning slot machine deal that sometimes makes you level materia, or yourself, or causes what would be a limit break (super strong attack), or gives you extra defense or immunity. I still don't understand why this is supposed to be a fun mechanic, but maybe it's the gambler in me, but I'm not completely angered by it. Random powerups at random times seems like the worst idea in gaming history, but here it sort of works-- or I just accept it.

So far, I've gotten farther in the last day or so than I have before. I think it's from playing so many sub-par games over the last 2 years, but I'm liking this game a lot more than the first time I tried it. I also went into it this time with more understanding of what I would be looking for, so that could be it as well. So far, I've just done a couple main story missions, and some optional quests. I remember there was a lot of optional feeling things to do last time I played this, so we'll see how long this holds my interest before things get busy enough at work that I have to stop obviously playing action games here.