Two stars.
There are important things we can learn about people from what games they choose to play, and how they choose to play them. It isn’t hard to envision a future in which playing a game to completion is a critical component of therapy.
Let’s jumpstart the process by asking what might be the most important question in gaming, the one that really gets to the heart of the kind of player (and by extension the kind of person) you really are.
How many megalixirs are in your inventory in your last FF7 save?
I theorize that there are two fundamental types of game player in the overall taxonomy of gamers. The first type are those who have no megalixirs left in their inventory, no Elixirs, no Turbo Ethers, no X-Potions. They found them and have long since used them to get through a boss fight. I think of these players as ‘immediate players’. They live in the moment of the game, considering their entire arsenal of tools at all times, using whatever’s available to win a fight.
The second type are those who have all the available megalixir pickups still in their inventory. They have all the available X-Potions and Elixirs. They have 99 potions in that final save, and 99 antidotes, and 99 ethers. If they have less of any consumable item, they have it in an even number: 10 hi-potions, 50 echo grass, 25 phoenix downs. I think of these players as ‘state players’. They’re concerned with the overall state of the game. A particular fight isn’t relevant to this player; the average number of fights, and the difficulty of those fights, in a given segment of the game is what matters.
My confession is that I don’t use consumables.