Tokyo Day 1: December 31, 2019 - New Year's Eve

December 31st: my first full day in Tokyo

Well, I did a lot of sleeping and blog-entry-writing as mentioned in my last entry, and when I finally went out, I forgot to bring my wallet and nearly everything was closed for New Year's anyway, so I just retrieved my wallet, stopped in at FamilyMart, and bought some konbini soba noodles with beef. And a ton of other snacks. (Konbini snacks here are so good...)

Now I'm back here, having gotten back into my thick layers of sleep clothes and started this blog post before bed.

Happy New Year!

1989 was my intro cutscene. It introduced some of the characters who would be involved in the beginner levels' story and the character I would be playing.

1990 to 1999 were my beginner levels. Over time I learned the basic controls and the simplest mechanics, and more and more characters were introduced. The tutorials here were strict, never allowing anything other than the intended outcome, never even really allowing for the possibility of failure. But they did their job, and I learned how to play the game.

From 2000 to 2009 I started to learn the basic mechanics of society, established my first long-term friendships, formed my first relationship, and gained a lot of the skills I would be using during later gameplay. Here I was at last given objectives that I was able to fail, and fail them I did, a few times - but always with a safety net.

2010 to 2019 were the years where the game, which had so far given me my objectives, began to teach me the advanced mechanics - including rejecting the idea of having my objectives given to me. I learned to let go of the safety net and take risks, make mistakes, get messy. These were the years where I was taught to make my own objectives, to choose my own party members, to forge my own path. This was the decade that the character creation screen and the name entry screen finally became available to me. This was the decade that I got to see the breadth of the massive world beyond the bounds of the tutorial levels, and all the different players who were out there who I could choose to invite to my party. This was the decade where I gained the ability to remove what might have seemed like required party members from my party, and to accept that not everyone I invited to my party would be with me to the end credits. This was the decade where I got to merge what had seemed like separate selves into one, true self.

It's 2020 and the world is open. No one sets my objectives or chooses my party members but me. I've redesigned my character to be an expression of me and the way I play the game. I've chosen the party that I think will help get me where I need to go, who will cover my back and help keep me standing and able to gain experience from my struggles. And I can't wait to see what new characters I'll meet in these coming chapters.

This is where the real game starts.

But first, let's save the game at the beginning of Chapter 31...

Please don't remove your belief or turn off the power.