Gaming

I've been playing a couple of neat games.

Time Bandit is a really unique mix of genres focused on real time-based interactions. There's puzzles you solve that take hours and you have to leave machines running and check back later, people you meet at certain times, stores that have different schedules. It's a dystopian setting where you work in a factory, and there's this guy you meet early on who's with a rebellion group that teaches you about communism. It's really neat, and less of a time commitment than it might sound like, most of my sessions have been like 10 minutes just checking in on stuff, sort of like a very weird animal crossing. It's pretty cheap and getting a criminally low amount of attention for how cool it is.

The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is a roguelite boss rush shmup. Really approachable for that genre. I got interested in it because the dev got hired by the Revita team (one of my favorite games from last year) to work on the expansion for that, and it definitely has some similarities to that, also kinda reminds me of Undertale combat. It's got a ton of content and does a great job at pacing the unlocks and stuff.

Last, Pseudoregalia is a 3D movement focused metroidvania. It's very N64 inspired in style. You're exploring a big castle, with a lot of platforming and interesting movement abilities. There's no map, so it definitely requires some patience with that, but it's a really neat game overall. Seems to allow a lot of sequence breaking. It's looking to be fairly short as well, which is nice.

Still Final Fantasy 14, I'm near the end of the Stormblood base story (some general spoilers in the comment).

This expansion has been a massive disappointment so far, and this time it's not even about all the time-wasting (of which there's still plenty). It's about a war to end the occupation of two different regions / nations, but it's just not executed well at all.

The scale of the fights, that are supposed to drive out the invaders, have like a dozen people on either side, so they are just really lame. The villains are not compelling at all and have a really dumb reason for fighting you. Some of your companions, that should play a bigger role, basically don't matter at all. It's just not interesting at all.

I can't wait for this to be over, hopefully the post-game patch content can improve things somewhat. I should at least get a bunch of dungeon unlocks, probably a raid, maybe more, which will most likely be a good time.

As for jobs I've played this week, at the start all Summoner, to get it to 80, afterward I switched to Dancer. Both are really fun and I liked them. I want to check out Red Mage a bit more, and have done some duties with it, but I need more practice with it. I leveled Dark Knight to ~50, but I'm just not really that much into playing tanks. I'll do some duties here and there, but not much more for now. Same with healer, which I'm leveling a White Mage a bit, for now slowly trying to get it to 50.

Just finished Marvel's spiderman (main storyline) and it was really great. Loved the graphics, the story telling and especially this view from the top of the Empire State building

I just finished replaying the Arkham games. Thinking about not moving to the Uncharted series since I’ve only ever played the first game, a tiny bit of the second, and half of the fourth. Want to experience the series / story in full.

Remnant 2 has been a blast. I do wish there was 1 more world in it to make it feel a little more full, but I love every moment of these games.

Its crazy to find a secret area in a secret area, pick up a melee weapon, then discover that the secret secret weapon unlocks a secret area with another hidden area inside it for a super secret ability.

Snowrunmer. Something about dragging big trucks through mud is just very relaxing and satisfying.

Just finished Yakuza 3, started Yakuza 4. Enjoying the visual bump, and some refreshing changes to the combat, though I loved the story of Y3. Also playing through BotW for the first time (very late to the party).

Trying not to get sucked in too deep by my return to OSRS on top.

I've started Elder Scrolls Online again after a long break and do the dailies there every evening with all my characters.

Discovering Octopath traveller II. Not a big fan for now, It’s beautiful but I’m a bit disappointed by the story. Hope it gets better 🤞

Persona 4 mostly, I really like it although I'm tending to prefer P5 from what I've played so far.

Started playing InFAMOUS 2, i played the first one maybe 10 years ago and now just getting to the 2nd one lol.

The House of Da Vinci. I got it in the Steam summer sale and needed something like The Room games. I had no idea it was so much like The Room games. I'm glad I bought it with a huge discount. It's not worth the full price, which is the only difference I see between The House of Da Vinci and The Room. The Room is definitely worth full price on Steam and a huge value if you get it on sale. Anyway, I'm happy. I get more of The Room, but it's in The House of Da Vinci. Great puzzle game to play clicking on stuff with your mouse and feeling relaxed.

I saw Timberborn getting shilled a bit on here so I've been checking that out. Lots of fun so far. The droughts keep absolutely wrecking me, though.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, a game that hooks a lot.

Playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on the PC. Bought it on a whim and it's quite a good game with gorgeous graphics. Lacking polish in some areas though, for example there are many oddly placed invisible walls as well as points where the character can get stuck. Anyway, trying to finish the game before Baldur's Gate 3 comes out.

Satisfactory. Been progressing my last save for a few weeks. I'm in the last (but largest) phase. My factory took a lot longer before turning into spaghetti comparred to my previous attempts. Now it's slowly getting complex to the point of considering going mass dissassembly and make something more pretty.