One day late, didn’t know where the week go.
Played some Trails in the Sky: SC. Got stuck at the boss of Chapter 2. It’s pretty tough. Though I have couple of ideas that can help, but sudden difficulty spikes like this annoy me a lot, so taking a small break from it.
Started Spider-man 2 on PS5. After playing and dropping Batman: Arkham Knight, I needed play something similar but not as slow, so got Spider-man 2. Have played a few hours and loving every minute of it. From combat to traversal to story. Great game!
Also started WWE 2K24. Haven’t played a wrestling game in a very long time, but since I got it for “free” as PS+ monthly game, gave it a try. Having tons of fun with it.
On Switch, most of the time was spent with the NSO Playtest thingy, and some Picross S4 in-between. I was stuck at one Picross puzzle (P-133) from a long time (and same puzzle in Mega-Picross), so wasn’t playing it much. Finally looked up a video online (watched a video instead of turning on assists, to figure out how to solve it, instead of just getting the solution), basically just had to do a wee bit of brute force thingy to check possible values 3-4 moves ahead to get couple of invalid positions, after that it was simple enough. Just have last page of Picross and MegaPicross remaining now, and then 4/5 extra-big Extra puzzles. So, should be finishing it soon.
That’s all from me, what about all of you? What have you been playing
Fucking finished Bloodstained after the last patch made it playable finally after more than 6 months. Had been grinding a lot and passed the last boss very easily in less than 5 minutes :D. Loved the game. Excellent story and great stuff to do and collect.
Why did it become unplayable? And Congratulations on finally finishing it!
What are you starting next?
Everytime a player entered the last boss room the game would crash https://www.reddit.com/r/Bloodstained/comments/1fbys0z/switch_version_crashing/
One of the few games I managed to play and actually reach the end. I got no immediate plans for playing anything else.
Skullgirls, Vampire Savior - 2nd in SG, 1st in VSav at locals. This happened in grand finals
Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - Didn’t do too hot in netplay biweekly. Gordeau matchup takes years off my lifespan.
Riichi Mahjong - skill
Splatoon 3 - Splatfestin’
Also finally published the big secret video essay I’d been working on. It’s about Puyo Puyo.
Eiyuden Chronicles
Despite playing on the highest difficulty with all extra challanges, it’s quite chill right now. Due to some quirks in how EXP works, one of my characters shot up 35 levels in a single fight. While he is lvl 55, everyone else - including my enemies - are around lvl 28.
Huh, that seems like a strange thing. How are you liking the game overall?
Performance problems aside (menus take ages to load in), I like the game quite a bit. There is just so much stuff: 120 characters, two additional fighting systems for special events, a card game, a bayblade minigame, a castle/town upgrade system and probably much more - I’m not even halfway done. The combat is quite auto-attack heavy and therefore simple, but keep in mind I’m olaying with double MP cost for all abilities (one of the additional challanges to tweak your own difficulty, like the ones in Dragon Quest XI).
As for the EXP thing, there are a few things that happened to align for me. EXP works like this:
- Each level requires 1000 EXP.
- You get EXP based on level difference between you and your enemies. There is a maximum value of EXP a single enemy can give to usually prevent what happened to me - I think it’s about 1000 for most enemies.
- If you get say 3000 EXP, that’s 3 level ups. Remaining EXP does not get adjusted upon each level up. That’s great since you can recruit 120 characters and if you miss someone at first, it does not take long to catch up if you want to use them.
- You fight with 6 charaters. EXP is split between them, meaning you get more EXP per character if only e.g. 2 of them survive.
Now, what actually happened to me is: I fought a unique mini-boss encounter with 5 enemies. I was overall underleveled and got wiped twice. The third time however, I won with only my weakest character still standing - he was 8 level below my team average. He got about 1200 EXP for the level difference * 5 enemies * 6, since only he survived, resulting in about 35 level ups.
I reached the second half of Echoes of Wisdom. I didn’t expect it, but for some reason it feels like the game has actually begun now. Maybe I’m imagining it. Haven’t played much since then though, but will continue tomorrow.
I finished the second main quest in Lightning Returns. The fight against
spoiler
Snow
was a lot more fun than the fight against
spoiler
Noel.
It’s kinda fitting that I found such a good time to pause on both games, because it’s time for the monthly game of Civ 5! I’m going down the list to play every civilization and the Huns are up this time. I’m not a fan of domination victories, so I keep the map smaller. Usually, I out-tech my opponents at some point on the normal difficulty, but something went really wrong and we’re actually all on equal footing. We’re down to three players and just as my warmonger penalty has worn off and I’m starting to be on good terms with everyone, both of my opponents declared war on me at the same time! They were at each other’s throats for a long time themselves. I fended them off, but I got some rebuilding to do now…
I also dug out Snowboard Kids for the N64 again. Quicksand Valley is really walling me right now.
And a special shoutout to the Beta of Monster Hunter Wilds that dropped all of a sudden. I had no idea! I just wanted to see if my PC can handle the game but ended up playing for three hours. I haven’t played World, so it’s my first time in this more realistic art direction. I miss the colors Rise had, but I’ll get used to it. I wanted to try out a new weapon for this game, but I think I’m too old to learn new tricks. I went back to my trusty Switch Axe within minutes. Everything feels a bit more sluggish, but I’m not so rusty that I couldn’t beat all the monsters in the beta by myself. The Magnamalo from the Rise demo way back when did not leave me with such confidence…
About Echoes of Wisdom, I guess you can say that, it does feel like world has opened up completely.
I saw the news about the beta, but since I have already planned to buy it, didn’t care about the beta. A few friends are planning to get it on launch, so will get it with them.
It’s a mess hahaha
I’ve been working on some personal and work things and there are a few moments with more free time (and anxiety) than I’m used to. So, I’m juggling 3 games right now:
- Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Specters for the 3DS. I played the first one and really liked it, but when I went through the sequel I had a lot going on and really rushed through it. I ended up not liking it very much and not even doing the post game stuff, which is weird because everybody praised the post game online. Now I’m going through it with a bit more time and I’m enjoying it much more, it surpasses the first one for sure.
- Sonic Adventure 2 on Steam: I felt like revisiting this one due to all the focus on Shadow Generations now. I’m going for a 100% completion for the first time since I was a kid. I must have sucked back then, because I’m finding that getting A ranks is much easier than I remembered (and much more fun). The chao are cute but I wish I could have a “Skip” button for them to grow up, eat and sleep. I have already resorted to leaving the game on while I showered and it still wasn’t enough.
- Minecraft with the Cobblemon mod, essentially Pokémon in Minecraft: I tried Pixelmon too, and to be honest I didn’t mind the art style clash, but one of the mods I added to Cobblemon was a trainer/gym leader system, with included level caps, so there’s a sense of progression. But the enemy gyms are tough so I’m only on Misty so far and I’m seeing that my team needs a lot of work, even though I’m already at the level cap!
I also started The Sims 1, got to the top of my career and got married, was planning on continuing with the content from the expansions but haven’t picked it up in weeks. I guess I’ll go back some day, or maybe not.
Oooh, nice!
Never played Sonic Adventure 2. I have only played one or two 3D Sonic games of old, and I don’t think it was this one. Do plan to get Shadow Generations though.
I don’t recall if I played the first Sims or the second one, but I remember loving it. I recently tried Sims 4 on PlayStation but couldn’t get into it, no idea if the game was bad or I just don’t like such games anymore.
I think Sonic Adventure can be a frustrating game. I confess it has some issues that I have learned to work around. But I still can’t see it as anything less than a great game that gets way more hate than it deserves.
The first Sims was in fake 3D, the 2nd one was already full 3D. The fourth one is known for being a huge downgrade when compared to 3 and even 2. I haven’t played 4 a lot but people really hate it, a lot of the community stayed on 3. It doesn’t help that EA is EA, and while the whole series has always had expansion packs and extra purchaseable content, with 3 already being a bit unreasonable, The Sims 4 took it to unimaginable heights. I think buying everything will set you back like 1500 USD or more, and it was super criticized for slicing up content into multiple packs. They even have DLC for DLC, with a content pack only having content for another pack…
