Final Fantasy Tactics is still to this day one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. I’m a big fan of tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem, more so than your typical turn-based Final Fantasy battles where there’s absolutely no way to dodge. Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a similar game with much more serious tones and artstyle, but nonetheless with the same charm as other Square Enix games.

It’s actually a remake of a PSP game, which I never played. I will say Tactics Ogre: Reborn was difficult—but not difficult to the point of frustration for a casual gamer like myself. For one, there’s no difficulty level. To add complexity, there’s a level cap dependent on story progression. That means there’s no way to grind if you get in a tough spot. Instead what I found was that I had to constantly buy the newest weapons, upgrade them…and use my items. THE BLASPHEMY!!!

Some of you all are like me—always save your items and only use them in dire situations. The next thing you know, you’ve beaten the game with 99 ethers, 300 bomb arrows, and 536 hyper potions, and are facepalming on not having used any items ever. Let me guess, you also hoard things in real life in the event that one day they’ll come in handy. It’s okay, I get it.

In Tactics Ogre: Reborn, healing spells suck. The further you progress in the game, the worse they get. And even though you get stronger healing spells, the cost of MP makes them not worth it. So instead I’d find myself equipping my characters with a bunch of healing potions, restocking at the store after every battle. It’s not just HP either. I relied on items for MP, curing status ailments, and even inflicting status effects on enemies, especially on the harder battles.

Weirdly enough, the battles felt really rewarding. Likely because I truly had to use everything in my arsenal just to win the battle. It forced me to take time to prepare before battles to ensure I had the right items, the right jobs, and skillsets. 

The Life Lesson

Hoarding is generally defined as collecting or accumulating something, which in itself is not bad at all. The more common connotation of hoarding is collecting a lot of things that you never use or have little value to you. The latter is what we’re going to focus on in today’s life lesson.

Things have different values to everyone. If you collect figurines or snowglobes or postcards or even stuffed animals and they have value to you (and you’re not unhappy with collecting them), then you’re not hoarding. You’re just collecting. Personally I can’t wait for One Piece to finish because I plan on buying every single volume and putting it in a bookshelf for display; there’s 104 volumes currently with ~5 years to go. And for you One Piece fans who care about quantity, you can cheat the hoarding system by buying the mega one piece book that contains 1000 chapters in one binding. One book isn’t hoarding… -sweats profusively-

If your room is full of every imaginable thing, like technology or gadgets or makeup or games or furniture, AND you routinely use every single thing, you’re not a hoarder. You’re high maintenance. I’m kidding.

If you keep the packaging box of things you buy AND actually reuse them (or your cats use them), you’re just recycling.

If you keep the packaging box of things you buy with the expectation that one day you may actually need it for something (but you have no idea what that is or no idea what day you’ll need it), you’re hoarding.

Marie Kondo’s famous phenomenon of tidying up if something doesn’t spark joy is a great start to mitigate hoarding. But instead of asking yourself if something ‘sparks joy’, instead ask yourself ‘do I use this?’ or ‘will I realistically use it anytime soon or ever at all?’. If the answer is no, then maybe that’s good justification to get rid of it. By the way, just because you want to get rid of something doesn’t mean you have to guiltily throw it away. You can donate it, see if any friends or family might need it, or try and sell it.

Let’s go one step further and prevent you from initially buying the thing-that-made-you-hoard. 

I love shopping. I love buying new things. It’s a bad hobby, I know. Sometimes I’m intent on buying something, stop and think about if I really need it, and then realize I don’t. Just the other day I was looking at a sunrise alarm clock and was almost about to buy one. Then I made myself realize that I have voice enabled color light bulbs and Alexa… so I made my own sunrise alarm clock. I definitely was getting into the aesthetics of a new shiny thing. (Crows should be my spirit animal). 

Don’t get me wrong, buying things isn’t bad. But when you buy things and then end up never using them, or only using them for a little bit and then it just collects dust and it’s too late to return it and ends up just sitting there in the closet even though you keep saying you’ll use it one day… that’s when it turns to hoarding. You can tell I’m speaking from experience.

So the next time before you buy something, really question if you truly will need and use it instead of forgetting about it in the closet. Or just bring a friend who can ask you those hard questions.

The alternative is to actually use the things you buy. Then no one can say you’re a hoarder. Yay!