Backlog 2021

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
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Mikodesu
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Finished replaying Portal a few days ago. Didn't post about it then because it's kinda odd talking about a puzzle game.

Still cannot understand why I didn't know about Portal when it first came out. I had online friends, I had friends in school who played games! How?! Such a special little game. Except for the complexity of a few of the later puzzles I think it could be a great introduction to games as a whole for someone who's never played one.

Haven't bought my Black Friday games yet. Very glad I remembered this...most of the older games I wanted to pick up run like « Cow Poopoo » on Steam, so I waited to see and they did go on sale on GOG. I still need to go back over the sales and pick a few things. My backlog is already big enough, but I don't feel so bad when it's something super old or an indie. Somebody I'd been meaning to support and hadn't yet.

The only other tidbit I have... FINALLY got my first picture in ACNH! They were so much easier to get a hold of in New Leaf, I don't get it. I think cooked foods seem like good gifts though. Hopefully I'll actually be able to get a few more... got several villagers calling me their bestie. Gimmie your picture, dammit! :lol:
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Kikki
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If anyone cares to know, Prideful Sloth (in the comments of a Tweet) said that they have that game-breaking save-bug fixed on PC now and are currently testing it to get it to work on console as well. Though I don't think the patch that fixes it has actually been released even on PC. But they said they'd fixed it on PC on November 24th. I haven't seen another patch released since the 18th, so looks like it's not live anywhere, yet.

I'm going to drag my PS3 back up out of the basement today. I just want to play Xillia. Fortunately, that Tales survey...everyone I saw speaking their answer out in comments was crying for a Xilla 1/2 remake. So maybe the one I want is actually the one in the most demand, this time, and the devs will pay heed, and we'll actually get a Xilla 1/2 remaster for PS4/5? (It really doesn't need a remake...just a remaster. Though if they overhauled it with the Arise engine, that'd be awesome...Arise was beautiful. The new skit style was extra spiffy, too.)

I want to TRY (again!) to get myself to do a Milla playthrough. I tried once before, but only got an hour or two in before realising that I just didn't want to continue as Milla when I could be playing Jude. I may have enough distance from the game now to do it, since it's been years since I last had Jude's adorableness shoved right in my face.
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simside
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Mikodesu wrote:The only other tidbit I have... FINALLY got my first picture in ACNH! They were so much easier to get a hold of in New Leaf, I don't get it. I think cooked foods seem like good gifts though. Hopefully I'll actually be able to get a few more... got several villagers calling me their bestie. Gimmie your picture, dammit! :lol:
They're so hard to get! I love collecting them before I let villagers move, but I've had very little turnover. ^_^; I give daily wrapped gifts to portrait-less villagers, with two receiving customized DIYs or unique/expensive items. Dina will not give me her portrait. She's gotten the best gifts daily for at least 2-3 months of play. Interestingly, taking a break does not affect the villager's opinions, as I got a few portraits immediately after coming back after a year.

Was not super-looking at Black Friday deals on games (or any deals at all - I am utterly broke right now), but since I was visiting my parents, I wound up getting Picross S2 from the eshop with points, so it only cost about a dollar. No upcoming games have caught my interest... Monster Rancher is tempting, but I played A LOT of Monster Rancher, and I did like the monster-raising parts, but the actual battle section was not as interesting to me. Plus, no CD gimmick! I think they're handling it through a database, but that isn't as magical.

Kikki, I've also been looking at Suzerain. My partner played through it on PC and loved it, though he wasn't a successful candidate, lol. I think it lets you choose whichever politics you wish (it seems to have a lot of variety), but it's hard to be successful if you're going against the opinion of the folks in your country. He played progressively, but I think he did it without a lot of PR, or giving ground in other areas, etc.

I got all but one of the maple leaf recipes on Thanksgiving in Animal Crossing, and currently only have one mushroom recipe left to the end of the month. I've backed way off on it, and plan on doing the winter events and completing the DLC, but probably not much more than that. The Thanksgiving event cracked me up, I loved everyone's boaters and pork pie hats.

I switched back to Harvest Moon One World when I no longer needed to balloon hunt, and played about 10 hours of that this weekend. Still hunting mutations! I only have two active quests to finish, which both involve mining, and I need only one ruby and one piece of adamantite to finish them. Still haven't triggered the clothing quests, so I'll have to try and dig into that more. I didn't wind up playing Labyrinth of Refrain, but I may switch back to that after I go back to my apartment (10 hour drive... ;_;).
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Kikki
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I always forget that portraits even exit in AC, lol...I don't like when they give them to me because they take up a decorating space (or a storage spot). I think I've received two of them (Felicity and Hamlet...neither still in my town), though I don't give presents often. Must be pure randomized luck, what you could get in return.
simside wrote:Kikki, I've also been looking at Suzerain. My partner played through it on PC and loved it, though he wasn't a successful candidate, lol. I think it lets you choose whichever politics you wish (it seems to have a lot of variety), but it's hard to be successful if you're going against the opinion of the folks in your country. He played progressively, but I think he did it without a lot of PR, or giving ground in other areas, etc.
It'd definitely be appealing to play Suzerain only if it isn't a sermon on the dev's political views, thinly disguised as a game. I wasn't sure if that would be the case or not...good to know you can play it with different political stances and still 'win'. But not knowing, it was reminding me of when I was on a tour in the UK, and the guide talked the whole time the bus was driving, telling about the region and landmarks and stuff, and at one point he started talking about...I think it was the engines of electric cars and planned obsolescence. I didn't make note of it at the time; I didn't have strong feeling about what he was saying, and in fact I more-or-less agreed with it, iirc. But I later heard from the people behind me that they were getting very frustrated/annoyed/angry, as they felt they were being preached at the whole time, as they had very much disagreed with what the tour guide was saying. But all they could do was sit there and listen to him yap on about it all that time.

Even though I hadn't had strong feeling on the topic, that did make me a bit upset for them. THey paid quite a bit of money to enjoy leisure time, travelling overseas...and they had to listen to the preaching of their opposers the whole time. That's what they put their preciously hoarded free time and money into? That really should not have been the case, imo. That's just what Suzerain made me think of...wondering if playing it would make me feel like those people on that tour...like a captive audience being preached to.

If you can beat the game without being forced into only making 'this' or 'that' type of choice, then it's cool. Same with NoviNews. I haven't seen any complaints about it online, though...not for either game.

EDIT: Nope. I tried NG+ with Milla, but after looking it up (I've forgotten a lot since it's been 4 years since I last played the game), Jude's route really is superior to Milla's, in that you get more exclusive scenes whereas Milla's is really just a little extra of her viewpoint. I do want the 500 Grade you get from completing the game as her, but...well, this will probably be the only time I ever play this game again, unless it gets ported or remastered.

You can really tell they initially made the game to only have Jude as MC, and that Milla was an option tacked-on at the end. Jude's is just...fuller, better rounded out. I checked my titles, and thanks to small stuff left undone, even without Milla's route rewards, I still have around 1500 grade I could earn.
Last edited by Kikki on Nov 28, 2021 4:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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iLoveSprites75
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Finished Brilliant Diamond in just 8 days which is the fastest I've completed a game in... I don't know how long. It sucked me in. I still have a lot I wanna do, but I beat the story, so it's back to Okami starting this week.
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Bluie
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Hnnnnggg, Endwalker is so close! It's THIS WEEK. I'm going to be SO GRUMPY at work on Friday, literally counting the minutes until I can get home and play! I almost want to call in sick lol.

It's probably going to be the last game I play and finish this year and may be my goty, because of the 22 games I've completed this year so far, the only ones I absolutely adored from start to finish still didn't blow me away. I think I'll tentatively say Monster Hunter Rise is currently holding the spot, but it can easily be removed if Endwalker sticks the landing. I want to CRY over my faves, I want this 10 year story to get it's proper and deserving close, and most of all; I want to be so absorbed I forget about all my troubles for awhile. Been awhile since a game did that for me.
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Mikodesu
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simside wrote:
Mikodesu wrote:The only other tidbit I have... FINALLY got my first picture in ACNH! They were so much easier to get a hold of in New Leaf, I don't get it. I think cooked foods seem like good gifts though. Hopefully I'll actually be able to get a few more... got several villagers calling me their bestie. Gimmie your picture, dammit! :lol:
They're so hard to get! I love collecting them before I let villagers move, but I've had very little turnover. ^_^; I give daily wrapped gifts to portrait-less villagers, with two receiving customized DIYs or unique/expensive items. Dina will not give me her portrait. She's gotten the best gifts daily for at least 2-3 months of play. Interestingly, taking a break does not affect the villager's opinions, as I got a few portraits immediately after coming back after a year.
I'll have to start wrapping a few gifts a day until somebody else coughs up a picture. I'm just so lazy. Probably the simplest is wrapped non-native fruit. :lol: I'm so sorry you've been fighting so long to get Dina's picture! D: Hopefully she'll make it a nice little holiday present for you... (Also, hope your drive home went well!)


--
Got a few games on GOG tonight. 4 for $15 is pretty good? The only one I'm sure my laptop can run is 80 Days. I'll be curious to see how much better it runs without DRM attached. I meant to spend more time rooting through games for ones I really want but my eye is acting up again and it's hard to look at a computer screen for extended periods of time. (Which is great, seeing how I work online.)

Right now the only thing I'm playing is AC. Got a very sad duplicate DIY recipe in HHP today. My first, though, so I wonder if it's just less likely to happen there? Kind of depressing to get three duplicates in a row, though. (Home, Kapp'n Island, HHP.)
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Kikki
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Gotta tell you...the Switch gets so much doodoo over being less powerful than any other console. But you know what? It's vastly superior to any Playstation console in one aspect...power outages. PSes are the worst prima-donnas in a power outage! The rigamarole a single flicker of power will force you through is almost enough to make you rip the console off the shelf, hurl it down, and jump up and down on it, smashing it to smithereens. The Switch, meanwhile, just carries on as usual...keep playing or, if you weren't doing anything urgent, just shut it down.

It would REALLY have been nice if Sony had put a 5-minute battery into all their consoles. Even a TWO minute battery would have been enough. Even just 1 minute would let you shut your console down properly so that it doesn't have a "I'm the specialest of all the most very special snowflakes!" tantrum about that power flicker. (Actually, if it WAS just a flicker, a freaking 2-second charge would carry the thing past it!)

Also had to go through a bunch of nonsense with my PS3 at 8AM today, trying to take care of some last bits, due to the PS3 store shutting down. They had decided not to, but you can see that they had been in the process. For some (most?) people, the 'add to cart' button has disappeared. It's still there...but it's invisible. And you can't pay for anything through your PS3 unless you add the funds to your PS wallet via some other means...probably your PS4, as tablet and laptop don't seem to work, either.

Not a day where I think too highly of the brains at Playstation HQ, today. Though I am having loads of fun with Xillia. But I don't know how I'm to find over a hundred more treasure points over the 671 I had already found in previous plays. Are they hidden in Milla's route, maybe? I don't think she gets her own dungeon like Jude has to go through when the story temporarily splits. It's amazing how hard it is to find this information online, too, with complete maps. Complete item and enemy data doesn't seem to be online, either...not for the first game, even though it is for the second.
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greensara
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In Shining Pearl I cleared the last gym, stopped the resident baddies, and caught Palkia. All I have left is the Pokemon League and whatever post game stuff I want to do. I also went and caught the Lake Trio just to see if I could before the League, and yes, you can. I actually caught Azelf before I did the last gym. Mesprit is a royal pain with the whole fleeing around the map mechanic, didn't miss that from the old games. I finally got her with a Honchcrow I traded for that had Mean Look, as it was Dark. (I tried with a Gastly/Haunter, bad idea.) I guess I may try to beef up my team a little more and then give the league a try. Then I can work on my Dex and breeding Absols (my favorite and an awesome catcher in all the games I have played where it's available). I want to try for some good egg moves, like Mean Look, which would have made it a lot easier to get the Lake Trio.
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Panda Parfait
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I picked up a game called Wildermyth during this Steam sale, so I've been playing that quite a bit. I'm really enjoying it! I'm still on my first playthrough, so I don't know how unique each playthrough is, but it feels like it's weaving together really well despite being procedurally generated. Also pretty chill and relaxing, which is just what I needed right now.

Also also: I managed to a snag a PS5 today! I've heard horror stories about people getting their orders cancelled because they don't actually have enough stock for all the orders they allowed through, but nonetheless I'm EXCITED. Can finally play PS4 games again, and won't have to wait around to play next gen games anymore. Woo!
Bluie wrote:Hnnnnggg, Endwalker is so close! It's THIS WEEK. I'm going to be SO GRUMPY at work on Friday, literally counting the minutes until I can get home and play! I almost want to call in sick lol.
Saaame, I don't get home from work until 8:30pm on Friday. It's going to be a torturous day. At least I might be able to squeeze a little bit in before work.
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greensara
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My word! Cynthia's Garchomp is an absolute beast!! I thought I was doing pretty well with the Elite Four and doing my best to hold my own against the rest of her team, but when she got down to "her last Pokemon", the Garchomp, it was straight KOs through my whole party! What!?! I wonder what the folks who were crying about how the remake was going to be to easy and ruin the experience are thinking right now. Man, I wish I had her team honestly. I may try another go at it but I think if I want to beat her with my present team being near equal level to hers is not enough, I am going to need to be seriously over-leveled for that wicked Garchomp. I will probably need to add more ice moves too as I don't think my team can learn any fairy moves.
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Kikki
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I'm pleased with myself for getting something tedious done. I had a few dozen enemies left to catalogue in Xillia, (actually nearly 50!) but I had no idea which of the about 275 enemies I was missing. So, cross-referencing 4 websites at once (I have sprained my brain!) I managed to track down every one that I was missing. I've written them all down, with the region they exist in, so I can be ready to track them down and beat at least one of them when I get to the areas they can be found. Everything is from Kanbalar, Xian Du, Magnus Zero, and the Coliseum. I never bothered with the higher levels at the Coliseum, nor did I bother with the post-game dungeon...that's why most of them are missing. Not sure why I missed the ones in Kanbalar and Xian Du, though. :? Well, I'm prepared now!

Also, I finally figured out Jude's Snap Pivot. I couldn't get it at all in previous plays, and when I tried it again this time...I got it! I can totally do it, though I do have to actually pay attention, unlike folks who do it without thinking. Last I properly played this, it was 2017. Funny how you just continually improve overall at gaming, even if you don't touch that game again for years...when you come back to it, you're better than before. Neat. I can also chain Link Attacks, now, too. Not well, as the window of opportunity is very short...but I CAN get them. Before I only ever got them with a great confluence of luck.

Lots of fun! Gonna play Xillia 2 after this, as well. I no longer care about having to wait on Grow or Cupid Parasite. :D Not sure I can afford any games in December anyway, so that's just as well!
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I beat Shin Megami Tensei 5 yesterday. What a fantastic game! Easily my favorite in the series. I didn't want to wait and I'm already going through it a second time.

I did stop briefly to check out the Story of Seasons Pioneers of Olive Town update. I couldn't get through one day of that game; I hadn't played it for so long and I had already moved on. Completing 3 town requests for a new upgrade doesn't seem very rewarding, especially when I have pretty much everything stocked up and ready to go beforehand. Oh well. I'm still waiting for Marvelous to announce the next game in the series; hopefully, they'll learn from PoOT and make improvements to the next entry.

My island is complete in New Horizons! Just need to get more bushes and flowers and to have the rocks spawn in the place I want them to and it should be good design-wise. Villager-wise, well, I kicked Mott out for Punchy. I can't believe the one villager I was amiibo hunting for just suddenly appeared at the campsite! And he had a mean streak out to kick Mott out of my island. 4 out of 5 attempts Punchy named Mott to move out. I didn't want to be without a jock villager, but Punchy didn't seem to want to kick anyone else out. That'll just mean I'll be kicking Lucky out in favor of either Ace or Tiensheng (I have Ace's amiibo card) and once I get Shari's photo, she's gone in favor of Quinn.
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Kikki
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Last day of November! Only one month left in the year.

Apparently I attempted a Milla playthrough sometime in 2018, but I quit only a few hours in. The last time I properly played Xillia was in February 2017...nearly five years ago, now. Looks like I first played it in 2015...or possibly late 2014. So it's been quite a while, but not long enough for me to think of this game as "nostalgic", I don't think.

Even so, now that I've arrived back in Xian Du, just watching a cutcene with this fjord-like town in the background, stone houses cut right out of the cliffsides, I feel like I've returned home after a long while away. Xian Du is, for some reaosn, the place that's always in my head when I think Tales of Xillia. Not Fennmont, or Nia Khera, or Kanbalar: Xian Du. Every time. Not sure why this is the image that sticks in my head so dominantly. I'm glad to be back here, though, regardless. And now I know why so many of my missing monsters are from Xian Du...it's because the Coliseum is here. Some monster entries list the Coliseum as their location, but others say 'Xian Du', which threw me off...but I get it, now. So really, I'm almost entirely missing monsters due to not participating much in the Coliseum or the post-game dungeon. I have everything else except the Gold Bacura. I don't relish trying to track down that rare (and very FAST) enemy down. I'll have to make sure I have a Dark Bottle on hand to make it chase me, so that I don't have to chase *it*.

I'm startlingly powerful in this playthrough. I didn't carry over any of my character levels. But I did carry over my shop levels...which means I have very good weapons. (Not the BEST ones, but not far off.)

I'm actually looking forward to wiping out the Coliseum, this time. I think I want to 100% this game, and the next one, and Xenoblade. There are no trophies with Nintendo, but XC1 has an internal accomplishment system and some of it can't be done in one play without extreme grinding, so I never bothered trying to get them all. Though...there are a few combat accomplishments in Xillia that I don't think I'll ever be up for. I refuse to grind out 4050 linked attacks, let alone 1350 chained link attacks on top of that. Just...no. Still, other than the ones I find to be absurd, tedious number-grinding, I do want to completely mop up the accomplishments my favourite games have to offer.

EDIT: The 3 enemies I was missing from Kanbalar were easy to fill in...they just happened to be available solely during a very short story window. The times previous, I booted it as fast as I could to escape the city with all the guards after me and I didn't fight anyone, dur. But how the heck did I miss the Insurgent Lead Striker?? They're just a standard field mob in the Mon Highlands!
Last edited by Kikki on Nov 30, 2021 3:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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greensara
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The beastly Garchomp has fallen! I can't take credit for it though as it seems more like dumb luck in my favor to me. After getting to the beast again and having a couple KOs, I put out my Bastiodon for the first time on this try so it still had full HP and of course it gets hit with Earthquake before it gets a chance to try to fire off Ice Beam. However, my awesome Bastiodon has the Sturdy ability so it didn't TKO and had a chance to attack. I was cheering at that fact I'd forgotten, but then, THEN it became frozen!! I was audibly screaming at the screen at that point, but figured Cynthia would use another full restore, so I decided to heal while I could. She didn't heal it! The next Ice Beam and Bastiodon won the game for me!! Woot! Yes, I did do a happy dance. So now I can count Shining Pearl as cleared, though there's still plenty of post game stuff to do. I'm kind of surprised how much I ended up liking it and am still having fun with it.
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