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DAWNTRAIL THIS WEEK! I am excited and looking forward to it! In the meantime, after not really touching FFXIV for a bit, I fell into it again this weekend so I could try to cap currencies before the servers go down tonight. I have successfully capped Bicolor Gems, but the rest probably won't be capped...

...but as part of the process, I ran The Dead Ends a bunch of times. That's a level 90 dungeon that drops a particular minion that is VERY popular and is VERY hard to get. I've probably soloed the dungeon with Trusts or Duty Support over 100 times, trying to get the minion. TODAY SHE FINALLY DROPPED! What a perfect ending to the Endwalker era.

In other news, I am streaming FFVII Rebirth. For a while I was a bit meh on it, because I didn't really understand what motivation the characters had for driving them forward, but I've gotten pretty far into the game now and it's definitely picked up. I'm more invested now! I stream it again Thursday evening, but then I am taking a week or so off to focus on FFXIV and complete my first play of Dawntrail.

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Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 15th May 2024 04:22)

Unfortunately, they stopped working with Visa/Mastercard/American Express recently, probably due to the spate of silly attempts to ban internet porn on the part of some U.S. state legislators.  (DLsite has a lot of adult content, though it does have a whole sector of its store website for non-NSFW stuff; the "home" part of the URL indicates it goes to a non-smut page.)  But they currently say Paypal will still work.

Quick follow-up:

This was solved very simply, actually.
You can just buy DLsite points on a third-party website. It costs one Japanese yen per point, and you can buy in increments of 1000 yen (or 1000 points). DLsite even links the site, helpfully. That site uses Paypal to handle payments, but you can pay there using your own credit card on Paypal.

So basically this is like if you didn't have a credit card but had to buy Steam gift cards. Which I used to do before I could use my own credit card.

An added bonus is that the U.S. dollar is rather high relative to the Japanese yen in recent times. So, like, 1000 yen costs like US$6 and change (US$6.21 at the time I'm writing this message).

Now, if you're spending points on DLsite, you can't get points for your purchases. Points were basically meant to work as something of a store credit bonus for buying from them. But you could only get points on items you aren't buying with a coupon anyway...and if you're like me, you'll have noticed that DLsite showers coupons on you all the time and you'd pick up the games for cheaper by using the coupons, which means you're generally getting 18% off or more even on games that are already on sale!. So you wouldn't be getting points anyway lol.

Points expire after a year so don't buy too many at once. But if you're buying games online you know you can expect big sales at least like twice a year anyway.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 29th June 2024 18:49

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. This has always been a fave of mine since I began playing back in 2000. Up until now, though, I hadn't really touched the game in about five years. Then I started get'n YT vids on it recently, and realized it began seeing a resurgence in popularity over the last few years. So I bought some new parts for my fightstick, slapped one of R51's nifty CoN stickers under a plexiglass plate (see here), and dusted off my Fightcade account. Good times!

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Console RPG Cliches

I am still doing Dawntrail MSQ on my main character in FFXIV - getting close to the final zone, I feel!

I had postponed streaming while I played through Dawntrail but I'm starting to really miss it, so tonight I'll be doing Pictomancer job quests and starting Dawntrail on my alt, Windy Storm. Link's in my signature, if anyone wants to drop by!

Dawntrail has been fun! I'll have more to say about it after I finish, but for now here's my first impressions:

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Up to about MSQ level 97, I felt the story was quite fun but VERY predictable, which soured me a bit on it because I really love those "HOLY SHIT!" moments of the game. It picks up after the level 97 quests as the story takes a dramatic turn.

The gifts for pre-ordering the game including Zidane and Dagger minions, so I knew there'd be some FFIX influences. When those influences first entered the story, I was confused as to what they had to do with FFIX other than place names. But going on in Dawntrail's MSQ, I could feel some of the themes from FFIX trickle in. It's QUITE different from FFIX in feel though! It's an interesting take on a callback to a previous game while still remaining fresh and true to FFXIV.

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Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

I had Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force on my "current games" for like half a year (7 months, my Galaxy client says) without touching it.

...but I did just get back into it!

Also, I need to pay someone for some stickers, but wild stuff keeps happening and I keep forgetting...

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 23rd July 2024 15:22

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Still streaming Final Fantasy VII -Rebirth- which I talked about in the Remake thread elsewhere. Nutshell: enjoying it, but starting to wonder if I will *ever* finish it.

I did finish my first play of FFXIV: Dawntrail about two weeks ago! I really liked it. My initial impression (a few posts up) still stands, but I will say the second half of the expac kicked things up and gave me the experience I was looking for.

Spoilers for second half:

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Endwalker had a "twist" in its story, but it happened pretty early, around level 83 or 84, IIRC. Dawntrail's twist was later - I was level 97 - and I think that weakened the storytelling a bit because SO MUCH is packed in the last few levels (the expac caps at level 100). Also, Dawntrail is essentially two different stories tied together. A friend said "well, so was Stormblood but Dawntrail did it better" but I personally feel that Stormblood weaved the two stories better together. Dawntrail very much is "here's the journey for Wuk Lamat to become Dawnservant", then is "oh, and here's a whole bunch of other stuff based on Final Fantasy IX"

About the FFIX references: at first, I felt the only references were place names and I didn't get why they used them other than to use them, but as you play further into the expac, the influence of FFIX was definitely apparent. Dawntrail's second half is VERY different in feel to FFIX, but the themes of the games are similar. I liked what they did with Dawntrail, and I successfully felt moved by certain parts of the last zone...

...which reminds me of someone on Twitter who posted a meme that said: "How I play FFXIV: Watch how hard I can CRY" with a stick figure drawing crying buckets of tears. This is one of the reasons I keep playing this game: because it DOES make me feel things! You really do get invested in the story and characters, and yes, I cried in the last zone (not as hard as Endwalker made me cry, but cry I did.)

All in all, I'd say this is a successful expansion. I do have my quibbles about it, but I largely enjoyed it, and am interested to see how they build onto this, ESPECIALLY

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

if we figure out how to travel to other shards/worlds. I want to see Y'shtola meet Runar again, and Thancred/Urianger be reunited with Ryne and Gaia!

I do want to say that FOR ME, the revelation of

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Solution 9

as a place we'd be visiting during the lead-up to launch didn't work, because

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

I assumed it was another world, and wondered how we would be getting there. So the "shock" of the dome over the town was greatly diminished... I was like "Oh. This is how it happens." I really wish they had chosen to keep that hidden. But that's just my personal preference.

.

Okay enough blathering about FFXIV, I need to go pretend to be productive now.



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Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

Been looking through my backlog, both on Steam and GoG, and I fell on WitchSpring R. Been pretty engrossed in it for the last few weeks, although I'm still fitting in some time for SFIII:3S.

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Console RPG Cliches

Just beat a game from my backlog -- Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial.

I did buy it within the last few years, so it's not from too long ago; it's one of the many games on GOG I've gotten since I stopped using Steam a few years ago.

Roguelite action platformer. The levels actually don't change *that* much, but the exact placement of the level elements is slightly randomized. The equipment you get definitely is. Also there's permadeath.

Oh, equipment. You randomly pick up weapons, but most of the action is picking up "chips", which give stat/ability enhancements. You can't have an unlimited number of them, though -- there's a hex-grid-style list of the ones you have (the grid order doesn't actually matter), and that grid has a limited capacity for the "energy" each chip needs. You'll get far more than chips than you can hold, but you can grind them into crystals, a sort of in-game currency that you can use to upgrade your capacity, your skill with different weapon types, your aptitude for each type of chip, and your other abilities, like special attacks and a multiple jump and a healing injection.

I heard that this game is like Dead Cells, but I've never played Dead Cells.

Also I've heard that there's a setting that lets you play with normal saves and no permadeath, but I can't find it. Oh well, I beat it with permadeath (including losing to the final boss a few times, yes) anyway.
EDIT: You have to choose it when starting a new game.

Game is slightly buggy (in amusing ways) but definitely playable and fun. Also, the translation is iffy at times (which I attribute to the Chinese devteam not being great at English), but the story is straightforward, and if anything, the flubs just add humor.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 15th September 2024 19:38

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Since the announcement of Echoes of Wisdom, I'd been having the urge to finally play Link's Awakening on the Switch - my daughter got it for Christmas the year she got her Switch and never really got into it, so it had been laying around unplayed for years.

It's my favorite Zelda of the ones I've played, and I haven't played it in 30 years, so I'm really enjoying it. It has performance issues and despite being arguably the easiest game in the series, it feels like the controls have gotten less precise and therefore many of the miniboss and boss battles have gotten more frustrating.

That said, I am having a really fun time with it and my daughter loves the story and the style, despite still not wanting to play it herself. I'm really looking forward to her seeing the ending.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I should start putting the stuff I've played here. My signature sometimes doesn't hold it all.

Anyway, I was looking for something to play after finishing Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial, and I gave Tonight We Riot a try. This is an action game where you control a...literal mob of player-characters, who the workers leading a revolution against the evil capitalists in charge of the place. And yes, the game has an explicitly Marxist theming to it. Amusingly, but perhaps fittingly, it's also a free game.

Basically, you control one specific member of a crowd, and everyone else follows you around, roaming around somewhat near you, and automatically meleeing enemies and obstacles they come across. They'll also duplicate any ranged attacks you do, such as throwing bricks or molotov cocktails, supplies of which you can collect while moving through each level. Occasionally, at predetermined locations, you can also rally more workers to join your cause, which means more of these computer-controlled units to help you, which is always a good thing, as you'll be fighting a variety of enemies who are of course out to kill you (all of you). A neat thing is that if your player-controlled character dies in combat (each unit has its own HP bar), your control is automatically switched to another member of your squad, as long as there's at least one other person still alive -- as the game tells you, the revolution lives on as long as at least one of you survives to the end of the level. But, if you can keep more of your comrades alive, the game will reward you with perks, like extra weapon options and equipment, which you can toggle on/off (this is a good design decision). The game basically works like a beat-em-up, but with relatively small sprites.

I finished the first set of levels, and even got the highest rank (i.e. most of your fellow workers survived) on each level (thus getting the unlock), but I lost interest by the second area, partly because I felt the controls were a little loose, and the AI is occasionally a little suicidal e.g. not standing far enough away from exploding fuel tanks.

Anyway, I was back to choosing a game...so I gave Way of the Red a try.

This is a metroidvania-ish 2D action platformer, about a warrior from a race of anthromorphic bird-people, who wanders into lands that are controlled by a human kingdom that enslaves them. He is captured by them, and has to fight his way out of captivity, and there's other plot lines that I won't spoil.

Pretty decent little game -- it took me about 6 hours to get to an ending, and there are actually multiple endings. The controls are nice, and while the combat is a little on the difficult side (which isn't necessarily a bad thing itself), there's a lot of exploration the player can do, including a variety of secrets with gameplay and/or story significance. The story is reasonably interesting, and there's multiple endings (and even some different bosses) depending on whether one finds certain hidden items and what one does with them. The spritework is simple, but effective. And the music is some satisfying chiptune. Not necessarily the best game in any particular aspect, but it's a work well put together, and it's also only like US$4, or half that or less when on sale.

Anyhow, after finishing that, I was again looking for something to play. Was thinking of playing Dex but I think I've kinda lost track of the fifty or so quests I had opened up. Was also thinking of familiarizing myself with Gauntlet (Slayer Edition), i.e. not any of the arcade games, but the more modern PC game in the series. But then I started another game...and I'm absolutely loving it.

Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap is a remake of the third game in the Wonder Boy series, whose legacy is...surprisingly complicated.

There's the mainline Wonder Boy games, then there's the spinoff/reskin of the first game that spawned its own series called Adventure Island, which is arguably ironically more faithful to the very first game of the series -- linear action platforming with tight time limits and fruit collecting and skateboard-riding, whereas the actual Wonder Boy flagship veered toward a more fantasy bent and eventually spawned the Monster World subseries, with what's basically the fourth mainline game being just Monster World IV and starring a different (and female) protagonist instead (probably why it doesn't have the Wonder Boy label). And this whole Monster Land/Monster World side of things is where Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap is as well, which was remade in 2017 by the French developer Lizardcube, with help from the original developers. The remake drops the "III" in the title. Eventually, this side of the franchise also produced a whole new game in recent years, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. (And then there's even a Brazil-specific rebrand of some of the games, using the locally-famous comic book series Monica's Gang.)

In The Dragon's Trap (both versions, as well as the more recent Monster Boy game, from what I've heard), you have the ability to transform into various animals -- or, more accurately, you're transformed into them involuntarily, because you start off fighting the final boss of Wonder Boy II, the Meka Dragon (or Mecha Dragon, according to some translations, and this is frankly a more accurately descriptive name, lol, but the official canon name seems to be "Meka")...whose defeat puts a curse on the protagonist, turning him into a lizard (well, one inspired by dragons, because it can breath fire, but yeah). So now he's gotta figure out how to turn himself back...so he eventually finds another dragon!...whose defeat curses him and transforms him a mouse. This keeps happening, of course, with each new transformation being a case of "cursed with awesome" that allows the protagonist to access new areas of the game -- Mouse-Man, for example, can crawl around small spaces and even stick to certain walls and ceilings. The result is a non-linear 2D platformer adventure, or what we'd today call a "metroidvania", with an ample variety of areas, features, secrets, and easter eggs, more and more of which become accessible the further you get into the game.

And the game is chock full of fun things, especially given that this is a remake -- and one that's somehow simultaneously quite faithful to the original yet also puts a fresh coat of paint on everything, in addition to improving a handful of gameplay features. The game distinctively offers the players the option to switch -- at will! -- between modern and retro graphics (with further optional CRT effects), as well as modern and retro audio (including a second toggle for the FM sound chip, thus effectively offering three soundtracks!). The game world's layout, and most mechanics (including the physics), have been meticulously reverse-engineered from the original game and ported to the new game -- this even includes the password system, as the new game (which autosaves the game) can register "retro passwords" on starting a new file, allowing people to continue their progress if they happen to have an old password on hand, and can even produce new passwords compatible with the old game! (If you listen to the developer commentary during a speedrun of the game at one of the GDQ events a few years back, you'll learn that the remake's devs even discovered secrets never known before in the original game, and preserved them in the remake.) Meanwhile, the modern graphics offer a delightfully charming comic-book-style aesthetic, with the chibi cuteness of the original, but adding in a variety of thoughtful new touches, such as far more fleshed-out setting details as well as new (and frequently humorous) dialogue for NPCs -- all of which are faithfully tucked away if you switch to retro graphics. And the remixed soundtrack, recorded in studio, adds a touch of jazz or other genres to the music, with some tracks getting multiple remixes, each for different applications (e.g. shops with their dinky radio, vs. clinics with smooth jazz), further adding new dimensions to the presentation. Oh, and you also get a nice gallery of concept art and recording sessions, which is gradually unlocked as you play through the game.

Basically everything about this game is so delightful. I never played the original before, having never grown up with a Sega Master System, but I thoroughly enjoyed this game, which I actually just beat a few minutes ago (I took a break from writing this giant post to finish the final dungeon lol). It has a similarly charming nature to it like that of DuckTales Remastered, and it's certainly there even for someone like me who didn't experience it as a kid, so it's not just the nostalgia talking -- this really is a great game.

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Games finished this year so far:

Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

Games in progress: Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force, Pokemon Perfect Crystal

Tabled: Lost Ruins, Dark Devotion, Dex, Tonight We Riot

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 16th September 2024 06:33

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Just finished The Pale Reach expansion for Dredge. Loved it and looking forward to grabbing the next dlc on pay day. Finishing up The Secrets of the Obscure expansion in Guild Wars 2 soon and playing Secret of Evermore on stream.

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I'm your Mama Terra, come hang out with me around the internet!

Retro gaming cosplayer with a focus on Terra Branford.

Rosenkreuzstilette is a game that's been around for quite a while now. It's a "Mega Man clone", made by doujin circle [erka:es], and it plays basically like a classic Mega Man game but with anime girls, lots of references to Mega Man and other games, and various other unique features, including its own unique plot and setting -- a drama involving humans with supernatural abilities. And lots of gratuitous German, with many characters named after German board game designers for some reason.

It's been circulated on the English-speaking internet for a while via a fan-translation, though eventually Playism picked it up for official publication. I bought it from Playism's store a few years ago, back when they closed down, because that was basically the last place to pick up an official copy of the translated version DRM-free. (It's still on Steam, but I personally recommend against buying things on Steam.) I first played it a couple years ago or so, and beat four of the robot masters RKS members, albeit with some difficulty.

Yeah, this game definitely takes after very classic Mega Man games, especially 2 and 4. And it has the stiff difficulty of those earlier Mega Man games, such as to a stage with Quick-Man-style lasers, a cap of 9 lives and 9 E-tanks cross tanks (where your inventory of them is not stored in the password system, of course), and bosses whose attacks are generally not that easy to dodge. The password system, amusingly, is basically lifted wholesale out of Mega Man 4 -- you can use MM4 password generators with this game (except for the second set of fortress stages, I think). (FYI, collecting the Black Forest's Treasure is equivalent to collecting both the Wire Adapter and Balloon Adapter in MM4.) The two placeable platform "weapons", Silberflügel "Eins" and Silberflügel "Zwei" (Silverwing "One" and Silverwing "Two"), are essentially Item-1 and Item-2 from MM2. Many enemies have obvious Mega Man analogues (mostly from the classic subseries), and some bosses/stages feel like creative mashups of multiple Mega Man bosses -- Zorne Zeppelin's stage seems to take inspiration from Heat Man's stage while having music that's strongly reminiscent of Drill Man's, while Luste Teuber acts like Metal Man while serving as the boss of a stage inspired by Air Man's stage. Some things that are direct analogues have an additional layer of difficulty -- for example, one of the Wily Castle Zeppelin's Castle stages has a boss clearly inspired by MM2's Mecha Dragon, but it now produces two different kinds of projectiles, some of which are harder to avoid than the dragon's fireballs. And bosses themselves tend to get tougher attacks in a "desperation mode" when half their health bar has been depleted. Meanwhile, thankfully, our main character Spiritia Rosenberg is able to both slide and fire charged shots -- for not just the Mega Buster Seelegewehr (Spirit Gun), but also many of the master weapons too, which is pretty neat.

In addition, there are references to other games. Zorne's bombs act like Bomberman bombs; Scwher-Muta Casasola Merkle's stage has obvious Mario references, and Count Zeppelin's character and castle as well as Grolla Seyfarth's stage both invoke the gothic horror of Castlevania games, taking direct inspiration from some of its most iconic bosses. And then there's the game over screens -- a unique one for every single stage, each referencing a different videogame, from Final Fantasy Legend to Shadowgate to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Anyway, this time around, I started playing it on a whim, and this time, I managed to actually finish it. I've arguably been playing it a little harder than I needed to, since I've actually largely tried to fight the bosses using buster only rather than exploiting weaknesses (though, to be fair, some of their weaknesses are for weapons that are rather close-range, so...). I've been able to beat six of the bosses with buster only and without needing E-tanks, albeit needing water to fight Trauare Wrede effectively. Last time I played, I got stuck fighting Trauare; this time, I had a better expectation of the difficulty, as well as a slightly better keyboard, and I pushed all the way to the end of the game.

Now that I've beaten it...there are some extra modes, most notably playing as one of the other major characters, but I don't think I'll be trying them anytime soon. I'm a little disappointed that the password system doesn't store number of E-tanks collected, not to mention that I can't revisit stages and re-collect E-tanks easily, making it kinda demand that I keep playing until I'm done. But, if you like classic Mega Man games and go in with these limitations in mind, you'll probably enjoy it. Also there's a sequel, Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, which stars another of the major characters, in a whole new game.

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Games finished this year so far:

Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

Games in progress: Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force, Pokemon Perfect Crystal

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 2nd October 2024 18:01

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Tonight I finished streaming FFXIV: Dawntrail on my alt! I had forgotten just how fun the final trial is. I really had a blast with it!

This time around, I felt much happier about Dawntrail. It's not that I [em]didn't[/em] enjoy it the first time around: I really did! I just felt it was lacking in some of the Holy Shit Quotient that I've come to know and love from this game. I was able to push aside those feelings for the second playthrough and just enjoy it for what it is, which is mostly a very fun romp with some serious bits near the end. They called this the "summer vacation" expac, and yeah, it is.

Patch 7.1 with more story is about a month away, and I'm looking forward to it. I want to see where they go next. Meanwhile on stream, the plan is to unlock flying in all Dawntrail zones on my alt by doing the side quests (I've got the aether currents already, except for the last zone) and then tackle the 8-person raid sequence.

Due to life busy-ness, I've had to cut my streaming down to two days a week, just Mondays and Saturdays. I"m going to keep that schedule for now, but perhaps in a few months, once I adjust to the new normal of my life, I can add back a third day.

We'll probably focus on FFXIV for a while, but eventually I'd like to start another single player game on stream. I'm really having trouble deciding what, though! These are my options:

Quote

    The Kingdom Hearts series
    Stardew Valley
    Star Ocean: First Departure R
    World of Final Fantasy
    Shadow of the Tomb Raider
    Journey
    Persona 5
    Horizon Zero Dawn
    Untitled Goose Game
    Spider-Man Miles Morales

Am open to opinions!

And now I need to fall into bed, I'm exhausted from streaming a half hour longer than normal tonight.

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Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

Heroines of Swords and Spells is an indie JRPG by Russian dev Kirillkrm, developed in RPG Maker. The game stars four misfit characters for their classes -- a thief who's too nice and generous, a warrior who's a total coward when push comes to shove, an acolyte with a mean streak who's been expelled from the nunnery and can't cast healing magic, and wizard who has no spells. Together, they are on a quest to hunt down the leader of the goblins. There's also a side-story where you can play as a set of goblin characters, but I haven't played that.

It has a number of distinctive features that would differ from what you might typically expect out of a JRPG. Here are some.

1. It's basically sidequest heaven, or hell (if you hate it lol). There is a main questline -- actually, just one quest, and the game is meant to be the first episode of a larger series. But before you can do that, you have to do personal quests related to each character, and these are essentially the meat of the story, each taking their own twists and turns, as you find out that in order to do thing A you actually need to do things C and D first, and once you do that, it turns out F is in the way, and so on. Along the way you'll also uncover a huge variety of sidequests, of varying complexity as well.

2. This is something of a low-power game with lots of item use. You don't level up very often, and monsters don't respawn, but grinding for XP is slow anyway, and killing monsters doesn't get you gold in most cases. (The starting level is 1 and I ended the game at 8, after cleaning out most monsters.) And you'll be going through pretty much the whole game with no healing magic (and it'll take you a while to get any useful magic at all). On the other hand, you'll be treated to a pretty generous (albeit similarly non-respawning) amount of item and money pickups, thanks to the lead protagonist's "thief vision", which you can even improve to see (and swipe) more stuff, which is always conveniently marked with sparkles. Just try not to waste too much of your items, and try to find a way to leave town without needing to deal with the nasty bureaucracy that charges you a toll. You can also try to take advantage of free healing too -- though the lead protag might feel guilty about it in at least one case.

3. This isn't something that affects gameplay directly, but the character names (most notably) as well as other setting lore take inspiration from Slavic/Russian culture, including some mythology and religious aspects. For example, there's a reference to Nicodemus, as well as a swamp kikimora. Makes me wonder whether the obnoxious bureaucracy and various political undercurrents are also a commentary on Russian government and politics...

As you might guess, the game is very story-driven, though obviously there's gameplay here too. Coolest mechanics I think are the lockpicking skill and perception skill elements, both of which can be enhanced separately. On the other hand, it's a bit of a drag that the mechanically-"flawed" characters will basically stay that way for quite a while, since I'd have to keep making trips to stock up on items, and also scrimping-and-saving on recovery. But I understand that this design choice serves the narrative. Things do get a bit easier the further you go into the game, particularly if you've been doing all the sidequests, because you gradually unlock more abilities and gain access to better gear.

Games finished this year so far:

Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 14th October 2024 17:30

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (TimberManiac @ 17th June 2024 17:38)

I'm just beginning Trails of Cold Steel III.

I'm still chipping away at ToCS III. Been playing a lot of WarThunder with a few friends.

We finished Link's Awakening since I last posted, and the ending was received as well as I'd hoped. My daughter took an interest in it towards the end and in fact did most of the last dungeons herself, handing things over to me only for bosses. Then she played for another couple days because she wanted to master the Trendy Game.

Since then, I went back to Final Fantasy XVI to do the Leviathan DLC, which was a blast. The Eikon battle there was exactly as they advertised it, quite difficult in a way that keeps you from getting too frustrated with it. I'd say it probably took me about a dozen tries to get through, roughly on par with the first DLC's final boss. I've got a few sidequests from Leviathan to mop up and then I'll probably be shelving XVI entirely.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

God of War '18
I had GoW on the hotbar of my PS4, remembered I'd stopped playing it, but couldn't remember why. So I played it...and remembered why. I was doing the Musphelheim (lava level) challenges in order to get the resources for the Chaos Blades big screen clearer, got frustrated and quit last year. I started again, got frustrated and persevered. Completed the game and now I'm doing NG+ on Give Me God of War difficu--nope! Nope! Not liking that! We're bumping this down to Give Me a Challenge. Yeah, that works.

I honestly don't really like the combat of this game, and the upgrade system is awfully obtuse at times. I'm likely going to drop it soon. We'll see...


Sekiro
Another game I dropped mid-game and then picked up. I beat it a long time ago, but dropped a new game plus run in favor of doing an completely new file and doing a first game run with the bell/charm challenge. I'm got to the last boss and couldn't get past the second-to-last phase, so I've dropped it once again.


Black Flag
Grabbed this on sale years ago, forgot I did, found it in my library, installed it and had a blast and dropped it after the mandatory 'first person' section popped up.


Dark Souls Remastered
This was a random in-between game I pop off on occasionally accomplishing nothing of any real importance, as it's supposed to be. Dropped it too.

I'm considering doing a run of the first Silent Hill on my PS3 since SH is on everyone's mind right now and that's the only one I got available to me at the moment.

--------------------

Arts

Farts

Twarts

Just finished reading the first episode of National Park Girls.

https://studiocoattails.itch.io/national-park-girls

Episodic visual novel starring a park ranger...and three personifications of U.S. national parks. Five episodes total.

Was expecting something silly, but some decent feels out of it.

It was nice after what happened a couple days ago.

The first episode is pretty short. Well, overall it's not that long anyway (vndb suggests the entire series is readable within 5 to 15 hours, depending on one's pace), but I was done with the first one in less than an hour. Well, not counting the times I stopped to process emotions.

*wishlists the other episodes*

---

Games finished so far this year:

National Park Girls - episode 1
Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

Will probably continue Ys Origin next or go do some other platformer.
Though, as I'm writing this, I've got multiple pieces of paper in front of me planning movesets for my pokémon in Crystal.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 7th November 2024 18:05

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

And there we go. Just finished the main story of Ghost 1.0. (Classic Mode, and probably Medium difficulty.)

This is a metroidvania-type game, made by the developer of Unepic. I'd say it's in the same vein of tradition -- metroidvanias inspired by Maze of Galious, just like Unepic (and separately, and more famously, La-Mulana). In fact there's even a companion game called Mini Ghost, which uses an MSX-style game interface. This one goes outside the box a little more -- in a somewhat literal figurative sense, as rooms in this game are not necessarily the size of one screen each, but in the same tradition, your character is rather small relative to each screen.

The story here is a sci-fi tale about a mysterious entity codenamed Ghost who has the ability to jump between robotic bodies. She is hired by hacker named Jacker and a robot engineer named Boogan, who wish to infiltrate and investigate a space space station controlled by the megacorp Nakamura, which makes androids that are used around the world. Ghost's robotic body is such that it can be reprinted from 3D printers if it is destroyed -- essentially this game's implementation of both infinite lives and the "drop your stuff when you die" mechanic (unless it's been scanned by a save point 3D printer's scanner first).

As you might guess, the gameplay involves exploring to find paths that lead to interesting places in order to find progression that leads to other interesting places, as indicated by things like locked doors or story elements or such. And along the way you can buy print some items from shops, some of which are single-use items that do various functions (including but not limited to healing).

Meanwhile, features distinctive to this game include powerups that you can disable/enable at will, a roguelike mode which randomizes shops and some other things, a variety of weaponry (from laser guns to homing shots to missiles to shields to drones), some battle-arena-like rooms whose difficulty is controlled by an alert level, and of course, the main character's signature ability, the ability to leave her body behind and "possess" any of a variety of other robots -- which is of course is something you have to do a lot of to beat the game. There are also some in-game secrets to find (including some amusingly geeky references), as well as extra missions.

I've had a lot more fun with this game than with Unepic. The controls in Unepic felt a little awkward to me, for whatever reason, and I remember getting stuck on a late-game boss where I had to beat it to proceed but also had nearly no ability to farm supplies due to annoyingly difficult enemies in the areas I had access to. In contrast, Ghost 1.0 feels smoother to control and has better anti-frustration features, while nevertheless still feeling reasonably challenging. Also, the plot is pretty engaging and the music does well in setting the tone of the story. There's a side dose of humor, if that's your thing, and it's integrated well into the story; I found the good guys likeable.

Definitely recommend this. If you like it, you can also buy an optional DLC skin for the protagonist; I think the dev added it after adding the missions as a update, but the missions are playable as part of the base game.

---

I've also started playing Blasphemous. This is a metroidvania too, but one that's clearly taking after Dark Souls, with things like slow and deliberate gameplay and rechargeable healing flasks. There are several such games -- I tried out Dark Devotion earlier this year but stopped because I couldn't rebind the keys and didn't like the inability to jump -- but what sets this one apart is that it seems to be thoroughly seeped in Spanish Catholic mysticism, themed strongly on sin, penitence, and atonement, and producing a grotesque gothic horror aesthetic from these themes.

The game hasn't quite "taken off" for me yet but I'm still near the beginning. I might put it aside for a while though since I don't think I'm quite feeling it right now.

I've also been ...not quite playing, but planning movesets for Pokémon Crystal. With lots of HMs moves needed to explore the Whirl Islands, and strong pokémon needed to make progress through the Ice Path, and also several pokémon whose movesets I'd thought about but never decided on, I spent some time ironing out how to make use of some pokémon with annoying tradeoffs between possible movesets. Some of the more annoying ones I ironed out are:
* Sunkern/Sunflora: evolve with leaf stone before L31; Petal Dance, Solar Beam, Mega Drain, Sunny Day
* Vileplume: evolve with leaf stone after L44; Petal Dance, Moonlight, Sleep Powder, Acid (can replace with Sludge Bomb at my leisure)
* Bellossom: evolve with sun stone after L44 but before L55: SolarBeam, Sleep Powder, Acid (or Sludge Bomb), and one more move of my choice (Sweet Scent for flavor, canonically)
* Slowbro: Curse, Strength, Psychic, Surf
* Slowking: Whirlpool (only Slowking can learn this!), Headbutt, Psychic, Surf
* Exeggutor: an annoying dilemma between Egg Bomb and other stuff. I decided that it'd be funny enough to have two wacky palm trees rather than one:
Wacky Palm Tree the First: Strength, Sleep Powder, Dream Eater, SolarBeam
Wacky Palm Tree the Second: Egg Bomb, Hypnosis, Psychic, SolarBeam (or Giga Drain?)
* Poliwrath: Mind Reader, Hypnosis, Submission/DynamicPunch, Surf
* Politoed: Rain Dance?, Body Slam, Hydro Pump/Surf, Hypnosis
* NIdoking: it has a natural learnset that just totally sucks, so it might end up with two HM moves. Surf, Strength, Horn Attack, Double Kick? Or maybe even more other moves since it can learn quite an assortment. (ThunderPunch and Ice Punch?)

Keep in mind I'm making movesets to balance battle utility/attack type coverage, the pokémon's distinctive "flavor" (mainly via natural learnsets, unless they suck horribly), field utility (HMs plus stuff like Rock Smash), and to some extent, spectacle (indulging my "Timmy" side, in Magic the Gathering player archetype parlance).

---

Games finished so far this year:

Ghost 1.0
National Park Girls - episode 1
Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Forspoken was on sale pretty cheap about a month ago, so I snagged it as I had been really interested in it from its trailers. I'm streaming it on Monday evenings and just did my third stream last night. I have heard less than stellar things about the game, but I am determined to play it and make my own judgement.

I have quibbles about the HUD. I feel it doesn't make what I consider the important info (health, stamina, etc) as bold as it could be while the pane for spell usage is bigger than I'd like. I'm still quite early in the game though so maybe there's a reason the spell usage pane is that size?

Gameplay is decent, though as someone who uses my hands a lot, I had to change the default settings from using RT to fire off spells to the X button instead. My hands are a lot happier now.

Story is intriguing enough that I want to keep playing, though it seems pretty generic.

Mostly what I like is that this is another game in the Luminous engine (FFXV was Luminous) and I just really like that engine for the sheer size of the game world. It goes on for kilometers and kilometers, and that's just neat.

I'm choosing not to do many side quests in towns, though I did accidentally trigger one yesterday but as it involved a KITTY! I didn't mind. (Yes, you can pet the cats in this game.) I am doing quite a bit of exploring of the non-town areas, though, including trying to climb something I couldn't figure out how to get up yet. Perhaps I can't climb it yet? Who knows!

I'm playing on most of the easiest settings, and it has been pretty dang easy so far, but that's fine by me because I am NOT an action gamer. I am just here for a story. Hopefully it's a decent one!

--------------------

Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

Adding another one to the finished pile. This time it's Owlboy.

Was deciding between two bird-themed indie platformers -- Owlboy and Eagle Island. I'm pretty sure they're actually very different -- in Owlboy you play as...a boy who can fly around, while in Eagle Island you are a boy who has a creature who can fly around, from what I've seen. Also, the original Eagle Island is a roguelike, with a non-roguelike version called Eagle Island Twist.

Anyway, Owlboy.

It's a story-driven game about a boy who can fly around, and he lives in a village...that is floating in the sky. In fact all the land as far as the eye can see is made of various islands floating in the sky. And you're mute. And your teacher doesn't like you. But the villagers are mostly nicer. And you have a close friend among them. So goes your days in the village.

But there are pirates. Like, literal sky pirates in ships who go around marauding. You hope not to meet them, as they're pretty powerful, but other than them, life is pretty peaceful. But one day, stuff happens, and some troublemakers show up in your village, and you chase them down, and one thing leads to another, and plot happens.

The game uses pixel art and it is gorgeously beautiful. And detailed! The main character alone has so many different expressive poses. And on top of that, there's a day/night cycle, which I think is just cosmetic but that's because I haven't yet figured out if there's a secret tied to it, as there very well might be. There are a fair number of secrets scattered around, and the game really rewards exploring -- you get nice perks from it, but more importantly, some late-game secrets reveal more backstory -- and it's totally worth it, with some very emotional moments -- both touching and chilling ones. And the sound design really serves the atmosphere well -- yet it's not just atmospherics; the orchestral soundtrack is gorgeous and contributes many memorable tunes when appropriate. Basically everything about this game is beautiful.

The overall design of the game is similar to that of Cave Story -- it is roughly linear, mainly in service to the plot, but you can revisit locations to explore them, with a few exceptions. And I've found that the game seems to actually have no missable collectibles -- you can get everything in one playthrough, as I'm pretty sure I did, and you won't lose out on stuff because you got it too late.

Well, except some NPC dialogue I guess, if you aren't talking to everyone, which you should, because it's definitely worth it to get to know the setting and the characters. Some have multiple iterations of dialogue -- and it's definitely worth talking to them. It's even definitely worth stopping to camp and chat by the campfire!

I loved my time with this game. Definitely one of the best games I've played this year, alongside Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap.

---

Games finished this year so far:

Owlboy
Ghost 1.0
National Park Girls - episode 1
Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Since my last post here, I've finished Witchspring R, and played through Ys 9: Monstrum Nox. I've since gone back to an old playthrough of Nier Automata, and am currently playing through the third path.

--------------------

Console RPG Cliches

I played a lot of Pokemon this year [Scarlet, Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl, Shield, Violet, Sword, Fire Red (modded)], which was a fun trip back to my youth, and Scarlet was probably the game I enjoyed the most [at least among those I hadn’t played before].

I also tested the waters of a couple racing games that aren’t Mario Kart, and I definitely enjoyed Chocobo GP more than Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway, and not just because the former has characters I’m fond of and the latter didn’t appeal that same way; still, neither compared favorably to Mario Kart, IMHO.

(I played Astria Ascending, but I only made it about an hour into the game before I bounced off it. I also played Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, and I enjoyed it insofar as both franchises offer fun puzzling, but I returned it to the library in order to revisit Final Fantasy VII in the VII & VIII Remaster on Switch.)

Still slowly streaming Forspoken, still enjoying it a lot. I just did some exploration the last few streams but I think we're going to advance the story tonight. I hope the requisite fights aren't too hard on my hands, I've been going nuts with Christmas crafting....

In the meantime, I actually *gasp*! took a break from FFXIV. It's all the fault of the new alliance raid. For those that don't play, it's called Echoes of Vana'diel and is heavily influenced by FFXI. And well, I was a die-hard FFXI player twelve+ years ago, and the nostalgia goggles were too strong to overcome...

...I went back to FFXI a few weeks ago, and have been running around on a new alt so I can redo story.

It's pleasantly wild to me that one of my friends from way back when is still playing. I dropped him a tell and he offered me an invite to his LS, which has been fun so far because they seem like a good group of people but they are all talking about stuff that I have no clue what it is because it launched after I quit.

There have been a LOT of quality of life changes in the game, and I'm having a blast playing so far. I'm trying to get my setup complete so I can stream the game (from yet another alt, which I created and then immediately logged out of, but I am logging into her daily for login rewards). I also spent a few days slinging spreadsheets, trying to figure out my main's gear. I mean, it HAS been 12 years! I was an Xbox 360 player and THANKFULLY my macros transferred over, but there are better ways to handle gearswapping now than back then, so I need to, at the very least, make equipsets for her and put them in the macros. Gonna be nice to be able to swap more than 1-4 pieces of gear at a time, which is all I could manage on ye olde Xbox 360.

--------------------

Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

Quote (Kane @ 16th December 2024 15:18)

I played a lot of Pokemon this year [Scarlet, Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl, Shield, Violet, Sword, Fire Red (modded)], which was a fun trip back to my youth, and Scarlet was probably the game I enjoyed the most [at least among those I hadn’t played before].

I also tested the waters of a couple racing games that aren’t Mario Kart, and I definitely enjoyed Chocobo GP more than Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway, and not just because the former has characters I’m fond of and the latter didn’t appeal that same way; still, neither compared favorably to Mario Kart, IMHO.

(I played Astria Ascending, but I only made it about an hour into the game before I bounced off it. I also played Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, and I enjoyed it insofar as both franchises offer fun puzzling, but I returned it to the library in order to revisit Final Fantasy VII in the VII & VIII Remaster on Switch.)

I actually played a good deal of Pokémon Crystal but still haven't beaten that yet.

I think I picked up Astria Ascending at some point. I'll try it out sometime.

Anyway...

A few days before the new year, I slipped in a couple more games beaten: 30XX and 20XX (in that order).

Both of them, from the same devs, are Mega-Man-inspired roguelites, with procedurally generated levels and randomized powerups available, where the intended game mode is that you clear eight levels, each with different bosses, and generated with increasing difficulty, then beat a couple end levels in order to beat the whole game, all in one life. There are some other modes/options, like being able to specify a certain random seed, as well as weekly and daily challenges with leaderboards.

20XX seems inspired by the X series, while 30XX seems to take more cues from the Zero series. The controls are very similar, though the game mechanics do otherwise have some differences (e.g. the resource you can keep after each death is use-it-or-lose-it in 20XX but can be accumulated in 30XX, and also 30XX allows autocharging and even has it turned on by default). Also, 20XX has four stage types, each featuring two possible bosses, while 30XX has unique stage types for each boss. (And 30XX has an NPC who offers an item at the end of the current level in exchange for daring to take some extra challenge condition. And so on.)

The story in 20XX seems to have the cartoony-ness of the classic Mega Man series, albeit with an apparently more cynical touch to it, as the robot scientists who seem to have built our protagonists also seem to regard them as disposable and disrespectable. 30XX, on the other hand, seems to have a little more depth of lore -- the two main characters actually reappear, but it has been a thousand years since the previous game, and much has changed, with some hidden story events that are actually kinda hard to access (e.g. pick up three specific items and then beat a certain stage, which will appear very different when you have those items), and there are also story logs that you can randomly find. I have definitely not seen all of these yet!

So, here's now the full list of games I've beaten/finished in 2024, in reverse order:

20XX
30XX
Owlboy
Ghost 1.0
National Park Girls - episode 1
Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 3rd January 2025 06:40

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 2nd January 2025 22:37)

So, here's now the full list of games I've beaten/finished in 2024, in reverse order:

20XX
30XX
Owlboy
Ghost 1.0
National Park Girls - episode 1
Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

I can count on one hand the number of these games I'd even heard of before this, but I've since looked up a couple of these and really love the vibes on Gato Roboto; how was it?

My daughter and I bought ourselves Echoes of Wisdom on Christmas Eve, and we just finished the plot last night. This one is definitely a "we," as she kept appropriating my save file when I wasn't wanting to play, and she definitely completed about half the game herself, including the final dungeon last night.

It's really an adorable game and the mechanics are a lot of fun, particularly once you get enough figured out to solve various puzzles in oddball ways. I think that if you don't actively try to do that, though, you'll find yourself solving puzzles and battles in the same way over and over, which might make things a little boring; we didn't have that problem but it's certainly a risk with the way the game is built.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 14th January 2025 10:24)

My daughter and I bought ourselves Echoes of Wisdom on Christmas Eve, and we just finished the plot last night. This one is definitely a "we," as she kept appropriating my save file when I wasn't wanting to play, and she definitely completed about half the game herself, including the final dungeon last night.

It's really an adorable game and the mechanics are a lot of fun, particularly once you get enough figured out to solve various puzzles in oddball ways. I think that if you don't actively try to do that, though, you'll find yourself solving puzzles and battles in the same way over and over, which might make things a little boring; we didn't have that problem but it's certainly a risk with the way the game is built.

The only thing I know about Echoes of Wisdom is that speed runners use the table for basically everything.

Quote (Kane @ 14th January 2025 21:08)

The only thing I know about Echoes of Wisdom is that speed runners use the table for basically everything.

Table is good, bed is a lot more amusing most of the time. But yeah, if you get into the rut of doing just those things you might get bored. Same with combat.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Kane @ 6th January 2025 20:59)

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 2nd January 2025 22:37)

So, here's now the full list of games I've beaten/finished in 2024, in reverse order:

20XX
30XX
Owlboy
Ghost 1.0
National Park Girls - episode 1
Heroines of Swords and Spells
Rosenkreuzstilette
Wonder Boy: the Dragon's Trap
Way of the Red
Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial
Giral
Aggelos
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue

I can count on one hand the number of these games I'd even heard of before this, but I've since looked up a couple of these and really love the vibes on Gato Roboto; how was it?

Pretty cool! It's a nice game with responsive controls, not-too-difficult gameplay, and a fun story. I also found it clever liked how the cat-in-mech and cat-not-in-mech had different mechanics, leading to gameplay variety. Would definitely recommend.

---

Started off this year playing Alwa's Awakening -- a 2D metroidvania platformer with an 8-bit aesthetic to it. Can be reasonably difficult, though not terribly so.

Story is that you are Zoe, a young woman who wakes up in a strange land called Alwa and you basically have to go recover these special artifacts that are held by these bosses, while the story unfolds gradually.

Gameplay-wise, you get three main magical abilities: creating a block that you can stand on, creating a bubble that you can stand on and which rises over time, and zapping stuff with a lightning bolt. There's also quite a lot of secrets hidden throughout the game. In fact the best-hidden secret took a community of players quite a while to figure out (though nowadays you can look it up). And it's very well-polished. Enterprising players can even figure out a difficult speed trick involving continuous bubble jumps.

One very curious thing about the design is that you can actually skip the bosses and come back to them later. This is actually necessary in at least one of the achievements. In this regard, the game is vaguely similar to La-Mulana, where beating the bosses themselves usually does not grant you much progression, aside from the fact that you eventually need to beat all of them to unlock the endgame. I think Alwa's Awakening does this even more so than La-Mulana does, as the latter has a few doors that open in response to boss defeat, but I don't think the former has any, aside from the big endgame unlock in both.

Anyway, perhaps in another coincidence, it's also similar to La-Mulana in another regard -- there's an "even more 8-bit" version of the game. But, while La-Mulana was a "fake" MSX game that got turned into a 32-bit-style remake much later on, Alwa's Awakening was made first for PC, with an 8-bit aesthetic, then genuinely ported to the NES, with some changes on each screen to make things fit. The NES ROM can be purchased as DLC for the game (which I ended up getting on both GOG and itch, incidentally), and there exist physical NES carts for this.

---

After finishing that, I went onto Runes Magica. This game is about a girl who uses magic to fight back against the knights and the kingdom that have persecuted her father and their community of mages. You equip runes, which are randomly generated by the game, to get attack of three kinds -- regular attack ("simple spell"), dash attack, and a fancier attack ("complex spell"). Every rune you can use to attack with has three different attacks in these forms, and they also have properties that vary with the element -- like how repeated fire attacks will cause a burn effect or repeated earth attacks cause a concussion status that makes enemies take more damage. And you can augment them with various other runes that make them do more, like repeating their attack or adding another instance in a reversed direction.

The gameplay cycle is basically that you get room after room of enemies and you have to beat them all before continuing on. Every several rooms, you get a boss, then after the boss, you get a room with a shop and upgrade options where you can combine runes. (Also the rooms often have secret areas where you can get some randomized treasure.) The exact types of rooms and the order of mid-bosses (not area bosses) is randomized, and permadeath applies to each run, so you can't continue a failed run. Fortunately each run is also reasonably short, maybe around half an hour I think?

Oh yes, combining runes. This is where the game shines. You can combine together to make new runes that contain other abilities. They actually work differently -- for example, combining earth and fire you can get crystals, and if you combine that with chaos, you can create swords that cause a bleed effect. The best combination I've found so far is water + electricity, which produces a way to call down lightning bolts -- this is super useful because it comes automatically with a homing attribute, letting you attack things that aren't on the same level as you.

Unfortunately, the game also has a number of bugs. I've occasionally gotten the game softlocked (e.g. by clearing out all the enemies in a room thereby unlocking the door to the next area, then going back and checking a random-outcome event in the room that spawns more enemies, which re-locks the door with no way of re-unlocking it), but on top of that, there's supposed to be some thing where you can use "shards" you pick up to craft runes but it seems completely inaccessible to me (the appropriate menus just don't appear when I try to open them). Furthermore, the game seems to reset my custom controls every time I restart it. And it's a little inconsistent whether I get to skip the opening cutscenes.

Nevertheless I've realized that I basically just restart-scum until I get water+lightning as my first two runes and then I'm basically good until the final boss. I haven't beaten the final boss yet, though...it gets kinda crazy spammy with attacks. Not sure I actually want to bother with this either, since the game is kinda repetitive and I feel like I've seen everything there is to see.

This game seems vaguely similar to Metal Unit. Both games feature randomized rooms where you have to kill all enemies to advance (and can find some hidden areas), and both are from Korean indie devs and feature anime girl protagonists. Even the platforming mechanics feel vaguely similar, to the point where I suspect they use the same game engine. (And some of the bugs feel familiar too!) The pixel art is quite good in both games (though I'd say Metal Unit is better for having more variety). But Metal Unit is definitely the far more polished game in this comparison, and also has a variety more gameplay options and features.

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Okay, so I've finished Alwa's Awakening. It basically has a sequel hook with the end screen turning 16-bit...

...presaging its sequel Alwa's Legacy, which is what I've started playing recently. Seems like a very similar idea but with more abilities and a new world to explore. Was the previous adventure all just a dream? The villain doesn't seem to think so...

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Games I've finished this year so far:
Alwa's Awakening

Games I've played significantly this year but not finished:
Runes Magica
Alwa's Legacy

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )