Grandma Goes To Battle: Growlanser Generations

Regular readers will remember that Victor Ireland of Working Designs sent Grandma a copy of Growlanser Generations after we posted on the site her undying need for an RPG to quench her level-up thirst. I was worried at first, because he didn't send the game for review, he sent it as a gift. So if she didn't like it, I would have to post up on the site for all to see that my Grandma didn't like her present. We ruled out lying about it right away, that would just take all the credibility of what she does and place it somewhere by Jack Thompson.

In the first days of her experience, this was a big concern for me. She wasn't getting the battle techniques right away, and the Ring/Gem/Armor combinations were not jumping out and saying "ha! look how easy I am!" Needless to say, she died many, many times. She was getting pissed.

Then she did what all gamers do after two days of frustrations. She read the manual.

The game has grown on her in a big way. Unlike most of the RPG's Grandma and I have played, this one has the ability to be a team effort in a style much less basement-player Dungeons and Dragons such as the four player Zelda she returned to GameStop recently. We find ourselves giving each other tips on strategy as the characters move around the playing field and watching the match unfold; celebrating together in a collective victory of wit.

Much more to come on this tomorrow.

Coming up at 9:00pm EST and continuing on into the night as usual, Ask Grandma Hardcore. We moved it from yesterday; much of the press linking to the site's participation in the Jack Thompson matter were linking to our main URL rather than the permalink, and Grandma and I both wanted folks to know what was going on. (That being said, if you're looking for all that, scroll down a bit, it's all in the last entry.)

We'll have a followup posted tomorrow about this whole ordeal, but Grandma is getting back to her gaming. We will follow Penny Arcade's example in that we will not ignore Jack Thompson, but we do have more important things at hand to deal with. The evil, traitorous wretch in Growlanser Generations that must be stopped, for instance.

See you tonight!