A love letter to Ragnarok Online, the video game that saved my life.

Disclaimer: This is not a review. This is not an objective evaluation of the game, but a recap of my experience as someone who played this game for over 10k hours.

Depending on when you ask me, I might say that playing a MMORPGs is the worst decision that someone can make, and to an extent I still agree with that; I’ve seen many times how massive multiplayer games drain the life and health of those who are not able to separate them to their real life. Yet, Ragnarok Online, a MMORPG, saved my life when I needed it the most. This game not only saved my life but literally shaped the person I am today, and for that I will be grateful until the day I die.

Between 2007 and 2014 this game meant absolutely everything to me. All the problems that my family and school meant to me. The daily abuse at home and domestic violence, the drug problems and all the consequences that entailed, the failures and bullying at school, the uncomfortable days of staying with my father’s side of the family who constantly mistreated me and stole my belongings, could be endured thanks to the times I could get to the PC room, boot my mother’s Windows and log in to the only safe space that I had.

The game was launched in Europe in 2004 and I recall seeing it for the first time around 2006 when I was a kid and saw my cousin playing. I started playing in 2007 on my mother’s computer and since then, I have been playing on and off until a few years ago.

Ragnarok Online, unlike other MMORPGs, simply allowed you to create your character and then dropped you in the middle of a city. No tutorial, no quests, no context on the menus, not even a simple “how to move” guide. God knows I absolutely adored that. Being able to not only discover all the cities and dungeons from the game but how the game worked (skills, systems, etc.) was amazingly fun. I strongly believe this made me curious by nature, stirred me towards the IT world and shaped my hacker-esque nature that prompts me to try to understand how everything around me works.

The job system was incredibly fun, it allowed you to build your character the way you preferred; Put points in the stats you wanted and only level up the skills you’d like the most. The cities were extremely interactive: all of them were full of NPCs that really conveyed that the world was alive instead of overloading you with meaningless quests. You’d not feel special or a “chosen one” but instead you constantly felt as if you were in a real world. The OST for this game is, to put it simply, a work of art; No wonder some of the most recognized doujin video game creators and music producers based some of their works on it or made remixes of the game soundtrack.

But what I really hope to never forget are all the beautiful memories I made thanks to the people I had the pleasure to meet in this game. There are way too many good memories and friends to count here, and although I will not be able to talk with most of the friends I made because we lost contact many years ago, they will forever accompany me in my memories and heart.

Not only this game shaped me by starting my interest in programming, developed my love for video games and allowed me to overcome trauma and social anxiety that otherwise would have ended my life, but the friends and people I met there really helped me to move forward in life and made me see that there’s good in the world and things worth living for.

No words will ever be able to describe how important and meaningful this video game is for me nor I expect to be able to convey my feelings, but I will forever feel indebted so there’s only one thing I would like to say:

Thanks for everything, Ragnarok Online.

The game that I loved no longer exists in this world.

With the relentless march of time, the game grew, changed, twisted, and morphed into another, different game bearing the aesthetics of Ragnarok. As is the fate of all live service online games, when updates come and changes are made, the previous iterations of the game are lost forever to the ether, becoming playable only in the memories of those who were there to experience it.

There is a loose network of small fan-run servers that attempt to emulate how the game once was. They are imperfect, as all memories are. Still, it is a comfort to me knowing they are there, maintaining those recreations of a bygone virtual world, keeping the doors open in case any previous resident becomes too nostalgia-drunk and stumbles in.

Generation 2 is my favorite due to nostalgia but has some big flaws like poor level scaling and the terrible distribution of new Pokémon. This Pokémon Crystal rom hack mostly sticks close to the original game so I'll mostly focus on the major changes made here and how well they accomplish their goals.

To clarify, it does not try to modernize the battle system with the physical/special split and the fairy type as many hacks do. It keeps it to as it was in gen 2 with exception of ghost now being special and dark being physical which makes more sense to be honest.

It does go further then the original Crystal did by making all the new generation 2 Pokémon available in Johto before you beat the game instead of making only a few available earlier then Gold/Silver. This is the change it accomplishes best in that the placements make sense and don't seem to disrupt balance.

There are stat buffs to many Pokémon. I'm not a huge fan of doing this most times but most changes are small just to boost viability in a generation that introduced Pokémon mostly on the weaker end.

There are some story changes which honestly I can do without. Story in this game already didn't matter but trying to heavy handedly explain things doesn't necessarily make it better, it just gets me to roll my eyes. There's really only a handful of moments noticeably changed so its not a big deal.

Trainer changes are great. It's still not a hard game but difficulty at least increases appropriately in the late game with trainers having more and higher level Pokémon then the do in the base game. Gym leaders have bigger and more thought out teams which actually use some hold items as well. It also addresses the levels of gyms 5-7 being a mess due to the games allowing you to tackle them in whatever order by adjusting these gyms teams based on how many badges you have which is a good solution.

While the scaling for the gym leaders is addressed, unfortunately it could not really do the same for the wild Pokémon and trainers along the way to these. They will be the same level no matter which order you go and due to the gym leaders actually increasing more noticeably in level now, it means this section is more grindy unless you just hack in rare candies (do it, grinding sucks). Past that wild battles and trainers are appropriately leveled now at least for what it's worth. I'm not sure what a more complete solution would be without forcing a specific order and blocking the other areas until its done to make things scale more smoothly but that goes against the spirit of the original game.

The hack also has a bunch of welcome quality of life features like running shoes, the modern repel system, and trade evolutions being obtainable either by using items on the pokemon or through level up. Its overall a solid hack if you just want a gen 2 game that alleviates the more notable issues and offers a bit more challenge then normal.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup puts the Playing Game in Role-Playing Game.

It's the best game ever made. Ok, not really. But good luck finding another strategy game that offers the same level of tactical depth without any of the boring parts.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup simultaneously remains a capital T "Traditional Roguelike" and utterly breaks the mold of tradition by actually caring about the player. There is no grinding. There are no tedious, multi-step rituals to accomplish basic tasks in the name of fluff. It is pure tactics. Everything that is not tactics is taken out. If something is not tactics and they can't take it out, it is automated. It does not require a google search or wiki to play (and beat).

This game is a hundred thousand lovingly hand-written "fuck you" letters to another beloved game called NetHack. Every day they push another commit and write another letter.