Backlog 2023

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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yzafre
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ToTK! I'm having so much fun! Some of my favorites...
Spoiler:
Caves. Caves caves caves, I love caves. I get excited every time I spot one. And the wells! The wells are so satisfying.

Ultrahand is fun to mess around with, although I've not built anything particularly crazy, yet. I like the way this ability lets the puzzles wrestle more with 3d space, though. You know what to do, but how to do it....

The world feels so much more alive! The NPCs are all alive, and they've all got little stories and gossip and a place in the world, even if they're not directly giving a quest. I love it so much, it really feels like they're involved in the world, you know?

And ooooh, my gosh. The reward for beating the dungeons. :heart: :heart: :heart: I love this change to champion abilities. Amazing, astounding. Little friend.

Enemies are harder! Or is that just me? I tried ignoring the story, but everywhere I went the enemies were slapping me into hte ground. :( Good risk/reward system, admittedly.

I could gush more, but just, wow. I'm going to be playing this for so long.
Of course, it's not perfect. There's just. There's just these little things.
Spoiler:
The UI to fuse things with your arrows is SOOOOO BADDDDDD. There's too many items for the same system as your weapons to work well. Not to mention, it sorts your actual inventory, not just that menu, and... I like sorting by type when browsing in the pause menu, but using "most used" while actually playing, so I end up switching back and forth all the time. Speaking of UI, they did not bother fixing the process for turning in korok seeds. Ugh.

There's.... less things in the sky, than I thought there'd be. Like, it's not bad! It's just... less. On the other hand, the depths are a LOT bigger.

And... well, I've done one of the "dungeon"s. When I read an interview saying they put the dungeon experience back in, I expected more. It's not like what I got was bad, pre se, it's just... really, really not what I was expecting.
Overall, I'm loving it. Like Kikki said - this feels like the game they always wanted to make, but couldn't before. There's just so much here to keep drawing me in.
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Mikodesu
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I think I'm pretty settled on taking a Genshin break. I might get on once a week for Abyss or whatever event is going on, but I might not. I love the world Genshin offers, I love running around in it, but the game is built from the ground up to be disrespectful of your time. And I need a break. Star Rail has kinda proven to me that Mihoyo can do better... I just don't think they can with Genshin. It's too late, the systems are what they are. And I'm tired. For right now, Star Rail wins.


TotK talk, no more spoilery than the main thread, but I'll spoiler tag it for those not yet playing.
Spoiler:
Still love exploration, not really sold on much else. I'm...uuuh... 32 shrines in and I'm giving them a rating of 'not great'. There have been a couple of 'that was neat' moments, but most of them end before they can get going. And maybe even FIVE of what I've already done have been cop out blessing shrines. :| Did 8 tonight, which is probably why I'm a little salty.

Exploration in TotK is EXCELLENT, though. It honestly feels like the devs took what Elden Ring did and made it better. They didn't, this game has been in development since before the last TWO games From Soft made were released, but it feels like it. The two things Elden Ring still has in the exploration department is better horse, and no stamina use outside of combat. (And imo lack of durability system, but I get it, that's core to the experience, I don't have to like it.) The rest is even better. There's an endless supply of 'one more thing' on offer. You go up, you go down.

Down is by far the worst part.
Spoiler:
There IS something neat about the 'expell the darkness' mechanic in the below ground area (I don't completely hate the cursed enemies, except when they're Lynels, those can « Snuggly Bunny » off), but it grinds 'one more thing' to a halt. Sky to surface you can go, 'ooh, a piece of candy' all day, but once you're underground that's just it, until you get sick of it and go back upstairs.
I also got to the culmination....area....of the Rito area main quest. If nothing else I can say they DID NOT get slighted as badly as last time. Last time was a joke. Watch a cutscene of Revali making fun of Link, shoot 5 targets, assault the carrier, board...bored. This time there was something to it. Some of that involved Zonai devices.... for good and bad. But there was something.
Edit: I forgot to mention! I got the email yesterday that the Chicory art book is done and it's SO PRETTY. I was expecting something small, with design sketches for the world and characters and maybe a few finished art pieces, but it's huge and there's tons of writing on the design work and all I've done is scroll through it a little. Maybe over the weekend I'll read more. I've been on the game director's email list since the Kickstarter, and apparently they're announcing their next game over Summer Games Fest, which is pretty cool! Can't wait to see. :)
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Kikki
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Neck spasms ahoy! So fun. Can't play anything that makes me tense up right now (boss battles, for example, or repeating the same thing over and over to get it right, as in some shrines) and a few days I've started to play and been too tired to continue.

My Switch is not yet showing how many hours I've played, even though everyone else on my list is showing theirs. Mine just says 'started 6 days ago.' But it'll be wrong, anyway. I've left the game on for LONG stretches when I wasn't playing it at all, but doing other things, or even sleeping. So it'll be fairly inflated, kind of like my ACNH play hours are...you just sort of leave it running because you know you're coming back to it, I guess? Though I leave it for long enough that I really should just turn it off.

I want to try scanning my amiibos again, though...that should be pretty low-key.

Progressing decently, I think? I have (bullet-point list of things accomplished so far):
Spoiler:
  • 42 shrines (plus 17 that have been activated but not completed, which I can do now without having to look around for them first.)
  • All geoglyphs (12?)
  • 6 of 7 Bargainers (and the full Depths set)
  • 1 of 4 Regional Issues
  • A full page of armor (but only 2 full sets, and only 1 set raised entirely to level 2 or better.)
  • 2 battery expansions (2 more cells, so...I believe that means I've gotten 2 of 21 possible upgrades.)
  • About 25% of the depths 'lit'
Am going to work on heart expansion for a bit, but I'll stick to easy ones for now...and I'll scan amiibos to beef up my inventory. And I'll just stare at the screen blankly, half the time, of course. That's what I'm good at. :) This increased clenching is likely to last a few days..not gonna tackle any difficult battles for now. Though overall I think I'm doing better. The physio is probably helping the leg, but temporarily making the neck worse, because I'm an absurd ragbag of messed-up bits...though at my age, everyone's got plenty of issues. Will have to mention next visit, I guess, see if I can do anything to improve other bits.

Been working on this post for nearly two hours. Guess I'll just hit Submit, at this point!
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Kikki
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Neck even worse, holy « Puppy Doodoo »! Not sure I can use my arms for anything today, if it moves them away from tucked carefully at my side. I can't figure out what position is best for my head. :shock:

But anyway!

I just saw Nintendo's proud article about 'the reviews are in!' for Tears of the Kingdom, and for some reason, it disturbed me. I really like Tears and think it's a great game, but I don't think it deserves 10/10's across the board. I don't think ANY game deserves that. To me when this happens, it's like...propaganda. It's like brainwashing. Like unreasonable, unthinking hype. I think a game can be a personal 10/10 for an individual, but to be shouting superlatives from every direction...it's uncomfortable, for me.

It isn't that Tears isn't really good. It is. But it's far from perfect. (I suggest NOT opening the spoiler unless you have completed at least one dungeon, preferably two. Which ones does not matter, since I mention no story details at all in here...it's all about graphics, performance, and mechanics.)
Spoiler:
The underground isn't engaging. It's scary enough to make you feel uneasy all the time when down there, and it's an interesting mechanic, particularly when you have to use the underground to access something about the surface, but it's also BORING. The graphics kind of suck in that they're really good in theory, but they use constant darkness underground (and it's very dim and grey down there even when lit up), continual fog/etc on the surface, and strong blurring bloom and misty cloud cover in the sky, to intentionally blur everything more than a few feet away...textures never have to render sharply except in a very tiny space. Nothing ever looks crisp and beautiful, to me, except things Link practically has his nose mushed against. Vistas are never gorgeous, ime. They're always fuzzy in one way or another.

The dungeons aren't any better than the first game, either...everyone was so happy that Tears finally had DUNGEONS more like the past...but they don't. What we have here is on the same level as what we had in BotW, imo. They lengthened the portion where you have to GET to the dungeon, but once you're there, the biggest visual difference is in colour/element. (They are better, visually, than BotW, but BotW was the PITS when it comes to what they call dungeons.) The puzzles are simple, even for me. Basically just flip X-many switches/triggers using your companion's element-specific power, and then go fight a boss battle. The trick is in accessing each 'lock', as they're behind traversal problems, so you have to figure out what order to do things in, and from where. They're a little more interesting than BotW's Divine Beasts, but that's not saying a lot. They still feel pretty much like glorified shrines. The best part, imo, is GETTING to the dungeon, this time. (Of course, that's the part I liked best in BotW, too...they just drew it out a bit in Tears.) So, they're better than BotW, but that's a really low benchmark, imo. They don't feel anywhere near as unique from each other as many other LoZ games like Wind Waker, Twilight, Ocarina or Skyward Sword.

They made the enemies harder, or Link weaker, so fighting is more stressful than ever, and they took away some of the things that made up for your weaknesses, before. They nerfed some of his abilities...his climbing in rain is now literally impossible no matter how much stamina you have because they made the 'slip' worse so that you MUST get the froggy armor if you ever wish to climb in rain, whereas before it was a pain, but you could manage if you were careful. You CONSTANTLY run out of arrows (and sometimes of brightblooms and fireflowers and etc as well) scavengeables are WAY more rare now...they've all been replaced by weapon bits to Fuse with, and construction bits to Ultrahand with...but they took out the plentiful mushrooms/flowers/herbs/etc. They're way more sparse, now. Durians don't appear to even exist! They were the best health-restorer possible, so food feels nerfed to be less effective as well.

And as I thought from the beginning, I don't even like Ultrahand. It's okay but I find building ugly contraptions a tedious chore. I want to just WALK Link from here to there, or glide, or etc. I don't want to make misshapen battery-powered « Puppy Doodoo » to do it instead. I don't like this techno-junk. Link is an action hero, not a mad (and bad!) inventor of mechanical stuff. Now I'm just ranting, lol, about one of my personal dislikes...I got sidetracked. But there are lots of other issues with this game, too. You spend more time scrounging for stuff to Fuse than you do anything else, imo, and that's tiresome. I'm always desperately looking for bomb flowers and arrows, as well as fire fruits and brightblooms, and boulders and strong hilts to make a good hammer out of that won't break before I can get through all the walls in one cave.
I know it's this game's schtick, and I can deal with it, but to call Tears a screaming 10 out of 10 from every source is just...uncomfortable. I like a lot about it. There's a LOT to do, and Hyrule feels more alive now. The story is much better, even though it's structured similarly to BotW. I get when an individual says, "This is the most fun I've had with a game. 10 out of 10!" Individuals don't need to be measured in their response. They don't need to look at things from all angles...just judge how much fun they had. But I don't like it when critics/groups do this. THEY are supposed to look at games from every side, not just the bits they liked. There's supposed to be some level of professionalism, not just fan-squealing. (I'm okay with some of that but I also want the more critical eye, pointing out potential downsides.) I am never comfortable with unthinking fangirling/boying. The ONLY criticism Nintendo Life, for example, had for Tears is "Performance isn't always perfect." Their review summary was this:
Nintendo Life wrote:It’s a glorious, triumphant sequel to one of the best video games of all time; absolute unfiltered bliss to lose yourself in for hundreds of hours.
I, personally, would probably give Tears a...9 out of 10, I think. It's a good game! And what it improves on in BotW is significant. (Though it also nerfed a lot that I did NOT want nerfed and enjoyed MORE in BotW, mechanics-wise.) But I certainly haven't been feeling absolute unfiltered bliss. (I suspect they meant 'unfettered' here, not 'unfiltered', since 'unrestrained' bliss makes sense, but 'uncensored' or 'unedited' bliss makes somewhat less sense. Still works, but 'unfiltered' makes it less complimentary and this review is a gusher, so I think they meant the most complimentary word possible, not this more ambiguous one, which could be taken in a negative way as 'uncritical/unthinking bliss'.) If you consider that I don't like a lot of the new mechanics, maybe I should give it an 8 out of 10, but I'm aware that's very specifically a 'me' problem...it's a preference. Similar to if you love or hate weapon durability, for example. I guess for ME, though, TotK is an 8/10.

It's a pretty great game, and I've had no glitches/errors/shutdowns, or even drops in frame rate or anything like that, so it runs well. My FAVOURITE bits are the deeper story and the more involved, more connected, more LIVING world/society, compared to BotW, with the many side quests and especially connecting quest-lines. But it bothers me that almost all the possible downsides are being glossed over or entirely ignored by critics/game journalists/etc. It makes sense that Nintendo only quoted the most glowing of reviews, and though I haven't seen them, I'm sure there are some more measured reviews out there somewhere (I have seen individual random rants that curse everything about BotW, Tears, and Nintendo itself, but that is most definitely NOT what I'm after) but seeing 10/10 over and over just makes me uneasy. Fan-squealing is appropriate from fans! But not from anyone who presents themself as an authority or a professional. Writing your squeals well doesn't make them anything other than fan-squealing, it just makes it easier to read.

Now...what do I put on my neck and/or back? Ice or heat? That's the real concern of the moment! Heat makes me feel better but my chiro is in love with ice ice ice. But when a muscle is clenching, ice only makes it worse, ime. This may be my major decision for today, lol. Tbh, this last year or so, I've grown to trust my chiro less, though the reason I started going less and less often is because I flat-out can't afford it.
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Bluie
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Hi. I'm back. \o/

I've played enough Tears of the Kingdom to not be spoiled any more (I haven't beaten it, but I'm very close), so I decided to creep back onto my socials. I've played a little bit of other things too, but it's all the updates to Genshin, Final Fantasy XIV, and NieR Reincarnation. I was really, REALLY excited when Pokemon Home integration was finally announced for Scarlet&Violet, but it was a false alarm and still in limbo. I was legit about to deep dive into Paldea again, but alas, I have to wait a little longer...

I think my plan right now is to finish Tears of the Kingdom and Xenoblade 3 before Final Fantasy XVI launches next month. Doable, hopefully lol. All my other Switch games can wait for now. Besides FFXVI and the AWL remake, I'm not sure I'm buying anything else on launch day this year, so once I finish them, I might just go all in on my backlog and see if I can get it fully polished off before 2024 (which sounds really far off, but it's practically summer already! MAN.)
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midnighttherabbit
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Finally finished my Bachelor's! :shock: Now I have a few months to work on reading and playing everything I want before I've got to get on with my MA. I probably won't be playing very much of anything next year with my workload.

My brother and I are playing The Last of Us - we've been playing for months but keep taking breaks. I don't generally enjoy games this linear but the story IS pretty good.

I'm also playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker which is good but a LOT. I don't think I'm ever going to get all the way through this one but I'm going to keep playing until I'm bored.
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Kikki
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Welcome back, Bluie :)

Congrats, midnighttherabbit!

The other day I caught myself staring at an object irl and wondering how to rotate it to fit what I was doing, lol. I guess TotK is one of those games that challenges your brain enough to make it carry over into real life. Though I've always been oddly good at spatial, it's always my top score in IQ tests, even...the key puzzles in Skyward Sword were always something I got done quite quickly...so unlike my sister, I never had trouble getting pieces to rotate the way I wanted them to in TotK. But...shouldn't people good at spatial be good at drawing? I am the PITS at drawing. There's pretty much no one worse at drawing than me. Whenever I try to draw even a simple thing, I can't even remember what it looks like. Especially not in such a way as to be able to render it into a flat (but not flat-LOOKING) object.

Er, anyway. I haven't been playing lately, not even a little...got into a twisty headspace where I just haven't wanted to at all. (+fatigue) I do want to go get the glide armor, but it really bugs me how a game wants you to first prove you don't NEED a special item before it'll let you have it. It's like a game giving you better and better ways to make money the richer you get, when you don't even need the money any more. It's just frustrating. I have no desire to do the trials necessary for that armor, and it's extra insulting that they make you pay a zonai charge per attempt. :? :? :? Guess I'll save first and reload every time I fail, so that I only ever have to pay once.

I think I'll attempt that first when I go back, though. That and getting the ingredients to upgrade the FD armor to level 2. Did I mention I got the game's best weapon several days ago? I did. And I didn't do it via the quest, AND I didn't do it with any contraptions. Though I'm going to do the quest anyway, once I have the FD armor beefed up to level 2.
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Code_Name_Geek
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Finished Sonic Adventure 2 yesterday! The last level was annoyingly long without a lot of save points, but I finally completed it. The boss fights weren't too bad though, a lot easier than the first game. I don't think I'm going to 100% this game like I did the first one since there's so much more to do, but I might mess around and complete some extra objectives before moving on. I have a couple of friends who really want to play the multiplayer with me so I'm going to try that as well.

I'm making good progress in Tony Hawk Pro Skater, which is apparently a good game to play in short sessions before bed. The N64 is currently living in my bedroom so I can just climb right into bed when I get tired. :zzz: I figured out my issue with the controls was that the game, being originally a PS1 game, is meant to use the D-pad and not the analog stick. The analog stick is functional, but I find it lacks the precision to do tricks with any accuracy. As far as progress, I think I have one stage left to unlock, two competitions to get gold in, and several tapes left to get. I'm not positive I'll be able to get all the high score tapes but I'm going to try my best.

Out of curiosity I also booted up Ocarina of Time to see if my childhood save file was still there (since it's a battery-backed cartridge) and to my surprise it actually was! The batteries have an expected lifespan of 15-20 years and the cart must be over 20 years old at this point - the save file itself is probably at least 17 years old. It's a game I've kind of grown up with so I'm considering finishing this save file while I still have the chance (I've never beaten the game after all those years lol). I'm right before the water temple if I remember correctly, but I went back to the child era to mess around for a bit and remember how to play the game. Well I immediately got jumped by skeletons on Hyrule Field at night which is just as terrifying as I remember it being. I'm also really scared of the Redeads, which is one of the reasons I make such slow progress in this game. I think I need to rip off the band-aid and walk into Castle Town in the adult era and die to them a few times to get it through my head that these video game monsters pose no harm to me in real life. (This is why I can't play horror games at all :lol: )

Haven't really touched the 3DS at all, so no progress there. I've also been falling behind on starting new games, but I got off to a good start this year so I think it's okay to take things a little slower. I still want to play AI: The Somnium Files soon, and Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue. Maybe I can knock out a short game or two as well.

I'm glad everyone seems to be enjoying TotK so far! I'm thinking of playing BotW this summer for the first time (very late to the party, I know), but I want to finish up OoT before doing that. :)
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Kikki
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Code_Name_Geek wrote: May 26, 2023 8:31 pmI'm also really scared of the Redeads, which is one of the reasons I make such slow progress in this game. I think I need to rip off the band-aid and walk into Castle Town in the adult era and die to them a few times to get it through my head that these video game monsters pose no harm to me in real life. (This is why I can't play horror games at all :lol: )

Haven't really touched the 3DS at all, so no progress there. I've also been falling behind on starting new games, but I got off to a good start this year so I think it's okay to take things a little slower. I still want to play AI: The Somnium Files soon, and Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue.
I suspect you're safe with Hamtaro, but if you can't handle horror, how you gonna take on Somnium Files? Or does it have to be specifically ghosts and magicky stuff, and violent gore doesn't bother you? Or maybe you can't deal with jumpscares? Don't get me wrong, Somnium Files is a super interesting story, but I often held my hand up or sort of moved my head so I was looking with my side vision, to avoid having to clearly see bloody eyesockets and some other, potentially worse things that I won't spell out...one scene was even animated and shown repeatedly, though. I got away from that one ASAP.

But I guess it's not an action game so at least these things are largely stationary...they can't jump out at you out of nowhere.

Gonna do some gardening today...the fun bit! (Already did most of the hard bit yesterday.) The flowers go in, today :D Not sure if I'll get back to TotK yet or not. I feel a little like playing, and I wouldn't mind continuing with upgrading the FD armor, but I intend to get the G armor next and I don't want to do the necessary trials. Plus I guess I just feel more like existing in reality than in Hyrule for now, for whatever reason. Maybe because gardening is good atm? Or because my therapy exercises are currently so difficult? Or because I know I need to get back to writing, to keep this floppy brain stable. I dunno, but as much as I love Link, I'm not sure I want to play with him right now.
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Mikodesu
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Code_Name_Geek wrote: May 26, 2023 8:31 pm I'm also really scared of the Redeads, which is one of the reasons I make such slow progress in this game.
Do you have the Sun's Song yet? That's my best suggestion on how to deal with Redead's. Kinda a mechanical spoiler, but I figure it'll help so whatever. Sun's Song stuns Redeads in OoT. You won't die by getting munched by one, but I always preferred to stun them and smack them to death, especially as a kid, if I couldn't avoid them entirely.

As for BotW, if you have the time/inclination to get to it first, I'd say go for it. If there's any downside to playing TotK first, I'd really bet it diminishes the first experience playing BotW, and that's a pretty special game.

--
I think I'm kinda settling into the reality that I'm gonna be playing TotK for months. I am the tortoise in this 'race'. I feel like I've done a LOT, but compared to the total I've barely scratched the surface. I'm making some progress finding armor sets and upgrading them, but there's a lot of material grinding to get them all the way there. And boy does that feel necessary this time around. Sometimes TotK feels fair in that department, sometimes enemies just SMACK you. Maybe that's why healing is so abundant...

If I get to the point that the exploration isn't as fun or the nostalgia fully wears off, I'll bum rush main quest, but for now I'm still having a lot of fun!


I did play Genshin for the first time in a couple of weeks, maybe since TotK came out? Went in for the update primos, and BOY does swapping back to 60 FPS feel jarring as hell. I didn't think my brain got so used to 30, but it made me a little dizzy for a few minutes. Weird.

Still primarily sticking with Star Rail for now. I enjoy the world building more...and oops just got my first 5 star. Lost 50-50 early a while ago, and this morning tried a new 'summoning ritual': be nice to the mascot in the wishing animation. (He has little mini-quests.) Got 4, 4-5 stars in my one 10 pull. :D And I like the character. Chinese general with big poofy hair, a monado spear and a giant robot.
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midnighttherabbit
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Finished TLoU! It was good, but I think I'll always be a little underwhelmed when playing massively hyped story games - I'm always expecting something on par with the best film / book ever and forget that the standards for good writing in a game tend to be a bit different. It WAS well written but not life changing in the way people sometimes make it out to be. I enjoyed the ending and how the circumstances had a real psychological effect on Joe, though, which I've seen a lot of games try to do and not manage to pull off.

Anyway, I decided that since I'm not buying ToTK until my birthday in June, I may as well try to finish BoTW. Most times I've played I've ignored the main story and quests so this time I'm just going to focus on that and see if I can get it done quickly.
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Code_Name_Geek
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Kikki wrote: May 27, 2023 5:24 am I suspect you're safe with Hamtaro, but if you can't handle horror, how you gonna take on Somnium Files? Or does it have to be specifically ghosts and magicky stuff, and violent gore doesn't bother you? Or maybe you can't deal with jumpscares? Don't get me wrong, Somnium Files is a super interesting story, but I often held my hand up or sort of moved my head so I was looking with my side vision, to avoid having to clearly see bloody eyesockets and some other, potentially worse things that I won't spell out...one scene was even animated and shown repeatedly, though. I got away from that one ASAP.

But I guess it's not an action game so at least these things are largely stationary...they can't jump out at you out of nowhere.
Yeah it’s mainly jumpscares and things being around me in 3D space that I can’t see. Honestly the Zelda stuff is only so bad since it scared me so much as a kid, I’ve played more intense games since so I think it’s some sort of ingrained childhood fear. I was a bit worried about AITSF too but I played the demo and read up on it as well and I think it’ll be ok since it’s not an action game… it’s kind of an experiment to see how it goes since it is probably a little out of my comfort zone. Thank you for the concern though, the warning is appreciated. :)

Mikodesu wrote: May 27, 2023 6:48 am Do you have the Sun's Song yet? That's my best suggestion on how to deal with Redead's. Kinda a mechanical spoiler, but I figure it'll help so whatever. Sun's Song stuns Redeads in OoT. You won't die by getting munched by one, but I always preferred to stun them and smack them to death, especially as a kid, if I couldn't avoid them entirely.
Yup I have that song, though when I first got it I remember stunning them and trying to kill them and then they unstunned and killed me… tbh I was a lot worse at action games then so hopefully it’s better now lol. Thanks as well, I’ll give stunning them and smacking them another shot!
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simside
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Code_Name_Geek wrote: May 26, 2023 8:31 pm Finished Sonic Adventure 2 yesterday!
This game was a lot of fun! I played the GC version back in college. I think I preferred the first, but both of them were a blast at the time.

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I've been hopping around games so much, and kinda unhappy about it! My partner tells me that I should stop forcing myself to finish, but when I don't I wind up as I am now, with like 6 in-progress games and none of them gripping me. Half of them are games he started with me and quit. -_-;

I did just finish CollarxMalice this morning. I really like playing Switch VNs before bed, while I'm eating, on lunch breaks etc... which I did for this one, but GOOD LORD I put 80+ hours in to finish it. To its credit, I liked the mystery enough to power through, and I liked that it was structured so you couldn't solve it until the final route to avoid repetition. But, like, it repeated other plot elements a lot, and when the mystery wasn't solved, the routes ended... with most of that just going away. Weirdly, when you did solve the mystery, the murderers and terrorists you arrested on the other routes were still at large. Unfortunately, I only liked two of the guys as well, but that was a me problem. I'm scared to play another Otomate game now!

I also finished the final date on Five Dates this afternoon, which was a fun short game. It's an FMV dating sim set during COVID lockdown, and the characters all feel fairly authentic. I kept finding new things even after playing some of the dates several times, and it always made me laugh.

Very near the end of Temtem now, which is still mostly a weekend game. This would probably have been finished faster if it wasn't always online, as I sometimes have trouble with my connection and I can't play it on my lunch break. The grind is pretty soothing and predictable at this point. I think I have two or three more trainer gauntlets to run, and a set of final bosses. Beat the last gym, beat a fancy tournament, my tems are 75-ish. They should be higher, but I have a team of ten I'm swapping out and leveling slowly. The leveling is... quite slow right now.

Still trying to get through Veil of Dust. After some desperate experimentation, I cannot play it on my laptop, and I only have about three hours a week on the PC. ;_; I'm at day... 60 or 70, have most of the available upgrades, and a chicken! All three LIs are unlocked, and I was horribly beaten at the chapter 2 boss. ^_^; Healing and saving up resources to give that another try.
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Code_Name_Geek
Tubular Turnip Farmer
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simside wrote: May 28, 2023 4:46 pm
Code_Name_Geek wrote: May 26, 2023 8:31 pm Finished Sonic Adventure 2 yesterday!
This game was a lot of fun! I played the GC version back in college. I think I preferred the first, but both of them were a blast at the time.
You know, I think I actually preferred the first too. The second one seems to be the more popular one but I really loved the levels of the first one. They were so fun to play over and over again (and the better grades weren't as hard to get lol). I miss the hub world and getting to fly as Tails too. Still liked SA2 a lot though! The Chao garden is a little more polished and I really liked playing as Shadow so it has that going for it.

~

I think I got over my fear of OoT Redeads after all that fuss lol. They were definitely worse in my memory than when I went to see them yesterday. I think I must have been hitting them once and then panicking when they didn't die and trying to run away (but getting caught), when you can pretty easily get in the three hits needed to kill them if you spam attacks. Plus my sibling told me they can't find you when you have the Iron Boots since they make you go below the speed threshold for them to notice you (but apparently they can't hear me stomping around? Not sure what the logic is there lol). And they also told me that if you kill one Redead, all the Redeads in the area will walk over to the fallen one and stand around it. That honestly made them seem more sad than scary, and I almost feel bad killing them now... but not too bad because they're still a little scary and I don't want them near me. :lol:
Mikodesu wrote: May 27, 2023 6:48 am Do you have the Sun's Song yet? That's my best suggestion on how to deal with Redead's. Kinda a mechanical spoiler, but I figure it'll help so whatever. Sun's Song stuns Redeads in OoT. You won't die by getting munched by one, but I always preferred to stun them and smack them to death, especially as a kid, if I couldn't avoid them entirely.
Thanks again for the encouragement! This is going to sound really silly but I honestly didn't realize I could just smack them until they died. That's what happens when you play a game before having constant access to internet guides. :shock:
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Mikodesu
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Code_Name_Geek wrote: May 28, 2023 10:47 pm
Mikodesu wrote: May 27, 2023 6:48 am Do you have the Sun's Song yet? That's my best suggestion on how to deal with Redead's. Kinda a mechanical spoiler, but I figure it'll help so whatever. Sun's Song stuns Redeads in OoT. You won't die by getting munched by one, but I always preferred to stun them and smack them to death, especially as a kid, if I couldn't avoid them entirely.
Thanks again for the encouragement! This is going to sound really silly but I honestly didn't realize I could just smack them until they died. That's what happens when you play a game before having constant access to internet guides. :shock:
Don't feel bad about that at all! It was a lot tougher to play games when there were no internet guides to run to. I think I just lucked out in that case of knowing somebody who found the Sun's Song and was brave enough to go play around with it. (I would have avoided them like the plague ANY other way.) I didn't even beat OoT or Majora's for YEARS (fear of failure being my only excuse) I was such a baby. :lol:

Anyway, feel proud you conquered your fear! It's not easy to do but it always feels good when it's done.
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