The Video Game Revue

Ravnica

I had a very busy day today playing the latest Magic the Gathering set, Ravnica: City of Guilds. This isn't really about video games, of course, but it's still very much a "gaming" thing, so I guess I'll rant about it a bit.

I'm quite new to Magic. I'd always sort of avoided it (largely due to lack of available funds to play) until a couple of years ago. I started playing 8th Edition at right around the time that Mirrodin came out, and first started exploring Mirrodin block with the release of Darksteel. I was very much into Mirroding by the time Fifth Dawn was released, and that was the first Magic expansion set that I actually looked forward to and got excited about, but I was still very new to the game at the time and not a strong player at all.

It's fair to say that I anticipated the release of Champions of Kamigawa more than any other Magic set to date. I really get a kick out of a lot of Asian-themed stuff, and I was looking forward to more of the fun mechanics and such that I'd seen in Mirrodin. Kamigawa turned out to be a let-down, although it is still a good block and I still play it quite a bit--it just wasn't the "end all, be all" set that I was hoping for. It's hard to describe in concrete terms exactly why it is, but consider the following bit as an example that occurs over and over again throughout the block: I really dig rats--definitely one of my favourite subtypes--and I really love the idea of ninjas, but when you put the two together to get "rat ninjas," suddenly I don't find them nearly as exciting anymore. I was looking forward to some kind of badass, dark ninja with deadly assassin abilities, and while Throat Slitter is a cool card, I just can't get over the fact that it's a goofy cartoon rat ninja! I'm not trying to be really hard on Kamigawa here; it's just that when they said it was going to have spirits, rats, samurai, and ninjas, I expected something very different from what was actually delivered.

Cut forward to present day and the release of Ravnica. I was really impressed with the previews, and a friend and I decided that we'd attend the pre-release as our first pre-release event ever. The crowd was unbearably geeky, and we're not sure if we'll do the pre-release thing again, but the set is astoundingly cool. With Ravnica, I've had the experience over and over again of seeing and awesome card, looking to the expansion symbol and exclaiming "wow, it's a common!" So today I got together with my small group of casual Magic friends and brought an entire box of Ravnica boosters. My first box of boosters! We did a five booster each sealed deck thing and then, because I think it's a much more efficient use of booster packs, a Rochester draft (what can I say: we had time to burn.) I love Ravnica. This is going to be the first Magic set that I ever take really seriously, which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy Kamigawa or that I don't still think Mirrodin is a lot of fun, but Ravnica is the first set that I've been really ready for.

One thing that's surprised me about Ravnia is that I didn't think I'd ever really take the whole "guild" idea seriously, but the way that the guilds work is so natural that I'm already becoming very familiar with all four of them without really trying to. Black and Green have been two of my favourite colours right from when I first started playing, so Golgari is naturally the guild that I'm the most interested in so far. I love the Dredge mechanic, and the sacrifice-based combos are really fun (reminds me a little of Mirrodin, even.) The other three guilds are all good too--I played a lot of Boros in the limited events I did, and although I don't have a copy yet, I really like Razia's card.

Anyway, I'm not going to rant at length about Magic right now. I just wanted to throw out there that Ravnica is out this weekend and it's been a big deal for me and my friends.

For the record, I also play Magic Online--primarily leagues, although also the occasional booster draft. I also like to buy cheap commons (they have trade bots now that will sell 128 commons for 1 ticket) and build fun decks out of that; I've been playing around with an Elf/Beast based deck that makes heavy use of Wirewood Savage. I love that card! But right--no ranting about Magic. Not now. Later, maybe.

I've started playing Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (about two and a half hours so far), and it really is one of the best console RPGs I've played since FF X. The game is so well put together, and the crazy characters and setting really draw you in. Four stars for sure, although the dark and violent theme of the game definitely won't appeal to everybody (ditto on the heavy Japanese manga influence.) It certainly appeals to me though.

I'm also still slogging through Lunar: Dragon Song. It contrasts heavily with Digital Devil Saga in that DDS is so well designed and Lunar: DS is so poorly designed. Ah well. The real shame is that these games are distracting me heavily from Xenogears (I'm seven years overdue on finishing that one) and Disgaea. They'll all be finished in time, though.

Hmmm... what comes out next week?

posted by Parappa @ 9:03 PM