It's hard to believe that it's been almost 3 months since my last entry on here, especially given how busy I've previously been on this site. I'm no stranger to adulting, but this year finally seems to be the one where real life has started imposing itself far more - a busier work schedule, a self-imposed exercise routine, a major illness in my extended family, and a routine visit to the doctor somehow ending in emergency surgery and weeks of recovery.

It almost feels like fate - I've been slowly but steadily inching my way through a replay of this game, whose central theme is how messy life can get and how you can't turn back time and how growing up sometimes unfortunately means shedding things that bring you joy. Could this game be trying to tell me something?

...NO!

This game is a joy to play. It has some of the best graphics of its generation. The soundtrack isn't 100% bangers, but tracks such as the opening, the Farnheit theme, the battle theme (which gives me Breath of Fire 3 vibes),and the Liberation Army theme are strong enough IMO to stand with the best music Square was turning out during this period. Mechanically, this game has so much to offer - each party is made up of four characters and a dragon, so feeding dragons to raise their stats and evolve them into more powerful forms unlocks new abilities for the party tied to them, which in turn can be used to get better item drops from enemies which can then be fed to the dragons to make them stronger again. It's a really great gameplay loop with so much potential for synergy and exploration, whose weakness is perhaps the upside-down difficulty curve where the game becomes extremely easy after unlocking certain dragon forms (including one that is completely invincible!)

But Bahamut Lagoon's biggest strength - like a certain other game about a summoner princess who falls in love with one of her captors and opens the door to another world - lies in its narrative and characters. While few of the 31 characters you recruit over the course of the game are particularly deep, I always loved walking around the airship talking to them in between battles - from the gossip who updates you on the latest goings-on to the three knights who are nothing like each other but stay fast friends to the unlikely tank/wizard pairing who go from frenemies to a couple, the crewmembers interact not only with you but with each other in a very believable way, making them really feel like a close-knit group made of real people. The fact that you also realize that these people who are all fighting for a worthy cause have their foibles (and occasionally do some Really Shitty Things) does add a sense of depth to the narrative - which I'll refrain from spoiling for anyone who hasn't played it yet, but subverts some very foundational expectations about the genre and takes you to places which very few games of the era would think of going.

Pretty ironic then that this game about leaving the past behind is the one that cements my determination to keep this medium as a core part of my life. I might not be able to play as often as I did before, but I'll keep coming back. On to the next one!