I missed posting last week! I mean, I missed writing; this little community is wonderful!

I wrapped up the Clip Picross section of Picross S9, so all that is left there is the Color Picross. Those games are definitely worth the money for me!

I ran Epyllion, a game that my youngest is calling D&D (Dragons and Dragons). It’s a game of young dragons running errands for the Dragon Council and growing up through friendship and hardship. It’s amazing how patient I can be listening to five ten-year-olds crosstalk patiently but when it’s twenty twelve-year-olds in my civics class, I have zero chill. Maybe because of standardized testing panic?

Tomorrow I’m going to play a trick-taking card game called Fishing where you want to win tricks, but you want to lose tricks to get better bait, too. I hope it’s worth it (but since I bought it after finding an Amazon credit that’s been sitting on my fifteen year unused Amazon account, it doesn’t have to be good at its price).

We also plan on playing Vantage. It seems like a 90s, Sierra-style adventure game where you are exploring a planet while on comms with the other players. They don’t get to see what you see, so you role-play to describe what is happening. I tried it once and I like it all except the theme (sci-fi isn’t for me!)

Oh, and too much Balatro.

Finished Baten Kaitos!

I think it almost took me two months now, despite only being about 50h long. Overall, I quite liked many things about the story and the gamplay. Although many systems didn’t work together in the late game - I don’t think I’ve crafted a single card in the second half.

In addition, I went through some demos today - just as a sort of palate cleanser before going either into Baten Kaitos Origins or something else, I don’t know yet.

I’ve tried Super Robot Wars Y, Labyrinth of the Demon King and Day of the Shell. There isn’t much to write about them, I don’t think I’ll pick up either of them. I just want to say that I adore the art style of Labyrinth of the Demon King - I just don’t enjoy the super slow gamplay horror games usually have.

I spent most of my time with Xenoblade X and there’s a lot I want to say. I quickly realized why my memory of this game is so spotty, especially the actual gameplay. The Wii U era was a weird time where a lot of games had smaller text that was very hard to read on my old 4:3 TV. As a result, I didn’t really understand a lot of mechanics. I remember not knowing what TP are until almost the end of the game! I basically played combat like it was Xenoblade 1 and ignored all new mechanics because it was too hard to read the explanations! As such, I don’t even know what’s new in the Definitive Edition. Did the original have the fast Arts thing you use with Y? If it did, I probably never used it, lol.

I think there’s been some rebalancing that I like. I might remember this wrong, but I think the big camel-like enemies in the very beginning would absolutely destroy you despite being the proper level because you weren’t supposed to fight them without robots. The way you weren’t able to tell easily if an enemy’s level is scaled to ground combat or not really bothered me but it seems to make more sense now. And the new level cap is exciting, being restricted to level 60 was very awkward.

But the biggest thing I love is that the exploration is directly tied into the story. It’s almost the entire point and probably why the series didn’t sit well with me after this game. Exploring the world was my favorite part of the first game and X is the exciting next step. I didn’t feel that anymore in later games, especially 3, which lost the weird, alien landscapes that I loved so much. I remember being really excited when I first came to Sword Marsh only to quickly realize that little area before the sword is the only part of this area that looks like that.

There’s also a lot of little things that I don’t understand why they were removed from future games. Like being able to auto-attack while moving! Having to stand absolutely still is such a bummer (and Xenoblade 2 was the first game where I experienced Joy-Con drift, so that was fun!). Or the enemy icons that tell you how, if at all, they aggro on you. That’s valuable information! You can just walk past a lot of high-level enemies because they won’t bother you, but you need to know that they won’t! And of course the big one: the characters actually wearing the armor you put on them, especially with a Fashion Gear option! I’ll excuse Xenoblade 3 because I’m a big fan of the job system from Final Fantasy 5 and beyond and the costumes are just a part of that.

I’m also almost done with The Witness. I’ve beaten the game, but there’s a lot of stuff underground that you can’t access that easily. I’ve found four ways out, but no way in, so I looked it up. From the final tally of puzzles, 15% of the game is hidden down there, so that should be interesting.

Finished Hollow Knight: Silksong!

Only got the “regular” ending, but it’s good enough for me - the game was already getting frustrating and I don’t think I’d have much fun if I tried to go to the “true” ending.

I don’t think I have much to add to what I said about the game last week. It’s a fantastic game, but also one that requires a high tolerance for difficulty and punishing design. Highly recommend anyone interested in the game to play it on PC so you have access to mods in case you need the lower the difficulty or tweak some of the game’s annoyances.

Playing CrossCode!

Resumed this one yesterday and I’m currently in the “lighning” temple. I did lower the enemy damage in the options to make the game a bit more enjoyable to me (in particular after almost getting burned ou by the difficulty in Silksong), I’m using 60% but will tweak this depending on how the battles feel.

The temples are some of the most fun parts of this game, and I’m pleased to know that I have do finish two of these to proceed. I’m also in Chapter 8 (out of 10 according to some Googling), so probably not that much left to finish the game.

No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week since I was focused on finishing Silksong.

Been playing Skyrim in survival for the first time lately (on Switch 2)!

Though I’ve played through Skyrim at least 30 times, this is my first survival run, and it’s so exhilarating. So many items that never mattered before are now life or death items, like god forbid you run out of salt piles 😅😂

Star Wars: Outlaws, 15 hours in.

It’s Star Wars Assassin’s Creed Witcher essentially. There is a touch of what I call Ubisoftosis (map with a million pins) but they didn’t overdo it this time. Main story is okay so far, sidequests are nothing to write home about but somehow it all comes together very nicely because systems play off each other constantly.

The first hook is the setting of course. I’m not a big Star Wars fan but I appreciate how richly detailed it is. I can’t help but compare it to Starfield where travelling is a chore and Outlaws does everything right. Even with fast travel available I usually travel to my spaceship on speeder or on foot, launch from the ground to orbit, punch in hyperdrive and land in the same way. It’s so seamless and fun!

My squirrel brain remains entertained because of the exploration & upgrades loop. There’s lots of environmental puzzles that are really well done and equipment rewards are usually worth it. On top of that you have abilities that you gain by performing certain actions, some of which can be a bit of a puzzle too, similar to how achievement work usually.

Kessel Sabacc is Star Wars Gwent, surprisingly fun for how simple the rules are. Switch 2 version includes Sabacc related DLC which is nice.

Technical side is really impressive. I didn’t think I’d see games with RTGI on Switch 2, especially not at launch. It does crash from time to time though but I haven’t lost more than a minute or so of progress thankfully. The game really benefits from playing on the go as you can quickly score some side jobs and leave main story for when you have more time at home.

The biggest drag for me are spaceship parts. The ship handles horribly and controls are weird. I have no fun spinning while chasing red arrows. If I could I’d keep Southpaw control scheme strictly for those parts it’d be bearable but alas…

Best 7/10 game I played in a while.

Borderlands 4!

Not very far in yet. I’m only lvl 16, but I’m having fun and enjoying MUCH more than 3.

2 is still my favorite so far, but we’ll see how 4 ranks when I’ve gone through at least once full run!

Finally finished my play through of Cyberpunk 2077 that I started when it came out on ps+. Enjoyable enough that I bought the Phantom Liberty DLC before I finished the base game. Stability still seems to be an issue. Had about a dozen crashes but never lost more than 10 minutes at any time.

I’ve realised I don’t like when games don’t let you max out all the available rpg skill trees. Always leaves me wondering if I could be having a better time. There’s playstyles that I wanted to try out but couldn’t because of limitations. I wish more games did unlimited respecs like Bg3 did.

I think I might give Sifu a shot next.