Shining Force

Ever since I got my Mac last May and therefore had lost the official version of Minesweeper that comes with Windows, I've essentially had nothing to fill my role of mindless gaming that I can do while listening to godless amounts of music. I mean, last year, I played Minesweeper so much that I was able to listen to my whole 90-disc+ Philip Glass collection and rate each piece on my iTunes playlist.

Enter Shining Force, an old game for Sega Genesis that I was obsessed with back then and have now become re-obsessed with now that I'm religiously playing the emulator version. I just turn the sound off, put on my iTunes, and have at it. The game, a Japanese-style RPG, is perfect for mindless playing because you can save each time you finish a battle with your band of warriors, and if you do it right, you can exit each battle just before you finish it, only to have to do it again, just so that you can build your characters' stats up without finishing the game.

Right now, I'm on the last chapter (of eight) in the game, and I'm currently building all my guys up to level 20. The great news is that even though I'll be sad to finally finish the game after all my hard work, there's a Shining Force 2 for Genesis as well, so I'll just have to start all over with another band of troops! =)