I’ve been playing Xenoblade Chronicles X.

The combat is pretty fun. It’s a bit more complex than the other two Xenoblade games I played (1 and 2), as there are more support skills you can use and overdrive requires a bit of planning. Enemies also have breakable parts, which add a bit of decision making during combat, although it does still feel a bit passive as there aren’t many enemy mechanics to interact with.

The main story is fine and the sidequests are pretty good. They are very short, but they have interesting stories. The “affinity” quests feel like they are the focus of the game instead of the main story.

I played a bit of Phantasy Star Portable, but my PSP’s battery is half dead and I’m waiting for a replacement so I didn’t play long. Seems like a fun game tho.

I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I have a few thoughts about it.

The gameplay starts slow, too slow to be interesting, but after around 20 hours you unlock all the main systems and it gets really fun. It is however dragged down a bit by how bad the blade gacha and how grindy other secondary mechanics are (affinity charts and region development/mercenary missions).

The story was fine, it was pretty standard for a JRPG. I felt like the main characters were more interesting than the ones in the first game, but the overall plot and themes were a bit weak.

The story feels overall a bit rushed towards the end (especially the ending comes abruptly, I was expecting it to be a fakeout) and weirdly unfocused before that, but still engaging enough.

Nay, but I have a few exceptions:

FFXV really benefits from the open world and never felt copy pasted like most others.

Outer Wilds (if that counts) could obviously only exist with a continuous map.

While I dislike most open world games, I don’t think it’s an issue with the open world itself, but with how shallow the games end up being as they all copy the same formula and they all seem afraid to hide “content” from you, so exploration gets trivialized.

After La Mulana I wanted to try more Metroidvanias, so I tried Castlevania: Symphony of the Night but found it incredibly dull and dropped it after a couple of hours.

I understand the historical significance of its level design, but the combat was so easy that traversal became boring, as enemies respawn every time you change rooms. Also, the sprites are beautiful and detailed, and the game looks great, but Alucard’s movement feels off due to the animation.

I then switched to Touhou Luna Nights, which was really short but fun. The time stop gimmick was fun to use and I liked the bosses. The metroidvania aspect was a bit shallow, probably due to the length of the game, as it’s mainly used for optional powerups.

I started playing Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. It seems like a fun game, the writing seems really cheesy (but enjoyable) and the combat is fun. A big problem tho is a bug that keeps triggering a slowdown at random times, which is really annoying and got me killed in a bunch of encounters.

Finally, I wanted to play Infinity Nikki, but I kinda lost interest with how the developer has been behaving lately. Can never trust gacha games.

I’m finally free from La Mulana. It took me 50 hours, and I had to look up hints for a couple of puzzles that I couldn’t figure out towards the end (and I’m still not sure how you were supposed to solve them without guessing).

The puzzles were manageable for the most part, although not knowing what solving a puzzle did made it needlessly more confusing and IMO a bit unsatisfying.

I found the combat to be too hard and unfair in boss fights and the hitboxes were really bad as they often didn’t match the graphics.

I’m conflicted on if I enjoyed it or not - the experience was quite unique (for good or bad), and the game being hostile and designed to waste as much time as possible is a big part of that identity.

The weird controls grow on you and navigation never got boring, as you plan a safe path through the screen. I found the story to be surprisingly interesting, the puzzles were memorable and while I disliked most boss fights, I did enjoy the final one and the previous quite a bit.

Probably gonna play the sequel sometime and also other metroidvanias, as it’s a genre I haven’t paid much attention to.

Understandable, yea.

The puzzle part feels like Outer Wilds, but without the log to help you and it’s also a bit less linear, which I’m personally enjoying but I can see why it could be boring.

The platforming/navigation is a bit janky but usable after a while.

The combat is IMO absolute garbage (the bosses in particular are pretty bad fights that waste your time and the hitboxes are terrible) and wouldn’t be surprised if this is what makes most people quit.

For now at least, the exploration and puzzles overshadow the negatives, but they are pretty big negatives that are hard to ignore.

I’ve been playing Under Night In-Birth II. I had bought it last year but never actually played it. After this first week of matches I’d say it’s my favorite in this latest “generation” of figthing games.

I randomly bought Azure Striker Gunvolt on Switch, since I rememberd hearing good things about it when it came out, but it’s not much fun to play. It feels really unpolished, the levels and bosses are a bit on the annoying side and the combat gimmick, where you need to tag enemies with projectiles to be able to damage them, feels really bad to use as it’s slow and unsatisfying.

Everyone playing Blue Prince reminded me of La-Mulana, which I’ve been playing in the last few days. I’m a bit conflicted on it, since I like most of what the game does except for the combat which I find rather bad and unfairly punishing when considering how imprecise it is. I am enjoying the game, although I’m a bit worried it might be too long.

Played Splatoon 3. The different modes are really fun, except for Turf War which kinda sucks. It’s the first time I’m trying to learn how to play a team game and I’m confused on how to improve, but I’m having fun with it.

For some reason tho Nintendo thought it was a good idea to do two day events (“Splatfests”) periodically which lock you out of any mode beside Turf War for their entire duration, so I went looking for other competitive games:

I went back to Guilty Gear Strive after dropping it for more than a year, but after playing it for a few hours, I still don’t like how sluggish the game feels and I’m not too happy with the modern design trends in fighting games (or in general the curent state of them). The biggest issue that stops me from playing tho is the terrible online experience which still hasn’t been fixed after 4 years.

Not much this week, been looking a lot at the Switch 2 trailers.

I’ve played Heavenly Bodies with a friend. We liked it, although it wasn’t really designed for two people.

I’m back to Fire Emblem Engage, played chapter 16 which took me ages.

I feel like that kind of price increase would encourage illegal downloads too. Especially for countries with weaker currencies

I wonder if that’s why they’ve been more aggressive against emulators lately.

But yea, same for me: there’s very few games I’d spend that much money on, and I can’t imagine myself paying 80$ for something I don’t even know if I’ll like. I hope it doesn’t become the new standard.

The +$10 for physical games also worries me they might be trying to push more people to digital games only. But also there seems to be the new “game key” cards which might be an improvement over codes, if they are not tied to accounts.

Also yea, I am still not used to $70 for games and even that seems too much.

Quite disappointed with how they are now going for $90 (physical, $80 digital for MKW) games, the upgraded versions are paid DLCs and even the tech demo is a digital purchase.

The console looks good, and $450 seems fine for it, but everything else looks overpriced and that has kinda killed my interest.

I’ll probably wait a bit to play III, but I’ve heard it’s alright from people who hate I and II. Although I’ve also heard that IV is not good.

Azure and Zero are definitely the best ones, I really liked FC and SC, although they do have some problems (the first half of SC is pretty bad, and the same problem with ouroboros I mentioned before) and I think 3rd has an interesting story, but bad gameplay and pacing.

Randomly trying games on my phone, I downloaded Infinity Nikki and I’ve been hooked for the past few days.

I like the customization, especially when compared to the more limited one in FFXIV, although I wish it had dyeing (and more jackets). Compared to other gacha games, I like how “the grind” is more focused on crafting clothing instead of just leveling up, although resources (and by that I mean the timed energy) feel a bit too scarce.

I finally finished Trails of Cold Steel II, or more accurately I watched the final story cutscenes because I gave up towards the end of the final dungeon (Which I’m glad I did because it otherwise would have been a waste of time).

The duology was really bad, I don’t think there’s anything positive I can say about it, other than that it’s finally over (hopefully III is actually better as I’ve heard). I’ve already complained about the characters in previous, so I’ll now complain about the rest.

Overall I think the two games were bad in the worst way possible: they were a boring waste of time.

Trying to finish Trails of Cold Steel II.

My opinion hasn’t really changed on it from last time, it still drags and most of the game feels like padding, the characters are uninteresting and the combat is a downgrade from the older games. The tone of the writing also really doesn’t fit the setting and that bothers me a lot.

As with CS1, the bond system feels unnecessary and it’s not really used for character growth (which would have probably been fine if they were interesting in the main story). I’m still playing only because I really liked the previous games, otherwise I’d have dropped them early into CS1.

Borrowed Nine Sols and tried it for a few hours. It seems quite good, I really enjoy the art and parrying feels really satisfying.

Played a bit more Library of Ruina, but couldn’t focus so I ended up looking for something else to play.

Tried Ninja Gaiden (Sigma, from the Master Collection), but while I do like the gameplay I just can’t stand the controls and the camera.

Next I tried Daemon X Machina, it’s fine but it feels rather lacking when compared to AC6.

I tried Final Fantasy X again, and I do find the general story and themes interesting but I can’t care about the characters and the gameplay is mind numbingly boring.

I ended up settling on Final Fantasy V (Pixel Remaster) because of the job system. I don’t really like how the pixel remasters look, but it’s fine.

Finished Chants of Sennaar. It was pretty good, altho it got a little bit repetitive towards the end. I did enjoy the

Played a bit of Shenzhen I/O. It’s fun, but I’m a bit annoyed at how logic gates are (not) used and overall it makes me want to work on actual hardware projects.

Started Library of Ruina, hopefully it’s less painful than Lobotomy Corporation, which I had to drop as I couldn’t figure it out even tho I liked it.

Also tried Persona 5 Strikers. The combat is fun, but everything in the game feels a bit off and I can’t explain why I’m not really enjoying it.

This week I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which I started a while ago. Compared to the first one which I did not like at all, both story and gameplay are a huge improvement. I actually am interested in the characters now and the combat is pretty fun, altho I still haven’t had a chance to experiment much with it.

I have however a few minor complaints: the blade gacha is a terrible concept and I can’t understand why it was put in the game; on handheld, performance is generally good but the graphics are ruined by a really strong sharpening filter; Pyra’s outfit is dumb and doesn’t fit the character.

I’m also playing Chants of Sennarr and it’s really good! I especially liked the design of the first three languages. The artstye is also really nice.

I’m back to Trails of Cold Steel 2. It is better than the first one. It still feels a bit like padding but it doesn’t feel as pointless. The game structure doesn’t feel as formulaic and repetitive, there’s less quests and it moves much quicker. The characters also finally look different from eachother, as they are no longer in uniform.

The issues tho are still mostly the same: the combat is a downgrade from the Crossbell game (the orbment system in Cold Steel is basically materia from FF7, instead of the much more interesting previous implementation) and I don’t care about any of these characters as they barely have a personality (I blame this on the social link-style mechanics and bloated cast).

Bad week this time:

I got a bit tired of Trails of Cold Steel 2, so to take a break I tried playing Wolfenstein 2, but it gave me motion sickness (not sure why, as the game is running fine and I tried increasing the fov, which usually works for me). I started looking for other games to play, but I can’t find anything that clicks.

I tried CrossCode again, restarting it after stopping around a year ago at the first real dungeon (the mines).

I really like the art, the characters are charming and the premise is interesting enough.

The puzzles are alright, altho they’ve already started getting repetitive (I’m after the halfway point of the second dungeon). The combat too seems alright, but the enemies are really annoying to fight, as they all force you to wait to hit them, which I find really boring.

Overall I don’t like it and will very likely drop it now. After like 10 hours the actual story hasn’t advanced much and the MMO’s story is not at all interesting. I tried doing a few sidequests as I had heard they were good and I felt I was underleveled, but I ended up being disappointed by what I found. Same for the exploration, mostly because it was unrewarding and the graphics lack depth, making telling apart different heights for puzzles and platforming really hard. I could probably keep ranting, but I’ll end it here.

I just finished FFIX, which I liked a lot. I quite liked that it had themes that are usually more common in scifi than fantasy. I am however a bit disappointed with how some characters feel like the get forgotten after encountering them.

I’ve also started Trails of Cold Steel 2. I have low expectations, after the disappointment that was CS1, but the start seems OK, although I’m always bothered by how the relationship between Rean and his sister is written.