How's your backlog?

[Ronin19]

PS: Sorry about the rage-quit situation. I hate those. I remember that happened to me once and I never picked the game back up at all, and it's so old now that I never will, lol.

I can relate as well. The last one I did was Child of Light. Fantastic game, but the game crashed as it was saving and I lost all my data. I was at the end of the game too; haven't touched that game in almost 4 years. Sorry about the rage quit as well.

In the meantime, I'm on Act 3 of Dragon Age 2 with everyone at max friendship/rivalry and Anders secured in a romance. I don't know what I saw in him the first time I went through this game; it might have to do with his personality in Awakening...and then Justice happened. I do find Merrill more adorable than I remember, for a Blood Mage anyway.

I did buy One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 and now I'm debating on a few things: with the announcement of Nintendo Classics and them abandoning Virtual Console, it's making me think about buying the rest of the VC games I don't own and I found out that Banner Saga is actually a hard game. I don't like hard games, but I'm interested in the game for the story, choices, and characters.

[Bluie]

Aw, that's such a shame. Child of Light is one of my top 10 games of all time and it sucks that happened to you. I'm also not a huge fan of hard games. I only end up deliberately buy a game that's difficult if it's part of a franchise I like or I try it on whim and end up enjoying it enough to grind/power through. The latter usually being only bought while on sale or has a demo.

For example; Monster Hunter. Minus the newest entry, MH has always had this incredibly steep learning curve. Pretty much git gud or git rekt. I hated it at first, unable to get into it, and it wasn't until a demo for 3U came out on the Nintendo eShop years later I tried it again, and found that It is enjoyable if I put some effort into it. Now I eat MH games for breakfast, and they're still stupidly difficult (especially on higher ranks), but I love it enough to not get too mad. I'm suuuper pleased about MHGU getting localized. I had almost given up hope of portable MH every reaching us again.

Every other game:

"Does it have an easy mode?"

"No."

"Eeeeeehhhhhh."

Honestly, if I enjoy the game enough on easy mode and want to play it again, i'll up the difficulty. I played Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Ring of Fates over and over that I got to a point where the difficulty made the final boss impossible to defeat, and it was only then I gave up. I would have kept playing if I was able to kill him for the 6th time! :D

[Ronin19]

I know! I love the graphics and the rhyming; it's a charming little RPG and I love it. I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.

Well, I did just buy The Banner Saga. It does have an easy mode, so maybe it'll help with the difficulty. It comes out on Thursday for Switch, so I'll know by then if the series is for me or not. The main draw for me is that it's made by former BioWare developers, so I'm already guaranteed a good story and well-developed characters.

[Kikki]

Shin Megami Tensei IV went into my 'abandoned' pile last year because of excessive difficulty. I had it for a year or two (possibly more) and tried starting it up three or four times, but I couldn't even get past my first day in the dungeon! (Though I hear that, in one of the least sensible gameplay designing choices I've ever heard of, the start of the game is the hardest and the entire rest of the game is easier.) Apparently if you die like, 3000 times in a row it will offer to lessen the difficulty of something for you...I believe I even got that option once...but it didn't do enough to help. Too bad, it seemed interesting...but no way. That's not fun, it's just bashing yourself in the head with a hammer repeatedly to see if it eventually hurts less. :p It also seemed like it relied far more on luck than any kind of skill, with that persuading demons to join you aspect.

Games that you can't figure out how to progress in...no thanks. Games are for fun. I'm not making money off of them, and they're not a life skill...so no to any game that requires me to spend hours just to learn how not to die constantly.

Let's see...this month for me I stupidly decided to replay Trio (what a waste of time...but the familiar is so comfortable) but I can drop it any time, though I'm not in the mood to play any of my other existing games. Just 7'sCarlet will be new for me this month. Then next month, all in the latter half of June, I have Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, The Lost Child, and Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk. Lost Child is the only one I'm not sure about, but it looks really good...gorgeous and interesting...so I probably will. Even though it's giving me bad memories of SMT. But then, SMT and Persona have a lot of similarities and Persona has a lovely Easy Mode that lets me just have fun with the story. So hopefully Lost Child will have difficulty options if the standard fare is challenging...I'll have to look into that.

Good luck with Banner Saga Ronin19 It looks interesting.

[Ronin19]

Good luck with Banner Saga Ronin19 It looks interesting.

Thanks! Just got this file of Dragon Age 2 to wrap up and One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 to finish before it comes out.

I'm also going to buy the last virtual console games I need for my Wii U, which includes Harvest Moon 64. I've never played it before and it's the last Bokujou Monogatari game I don't own. For a mostly relaxing month, I bought a lot of games. Good-bye, my sweet, sweet free time!

[Bluie]

Ah, I remember my first and only playthrough of SMTIV. It certainly had it's frustrations. I remember a specific dungeon making me want to snap my 3DS is half. I think there was a game drought at the time so I stuck with it until the end. Sided with the angels and then watched the other endings on YT. Man, the neutral ending in that game seemed like such a pain to figure out!

I have a feeling you'll enjoy Ys VIII, Kiki. It's very easy to get into and fun to play. I'm skipping it on Switch until it's a bit cheaper, but all the modern Ys titles are usually a blast for all who get into them. The Lost Child is another first person dungeon crawler, so i'm hard passing on that.

I mentioned in the upcoming game thread that I have 3 games to juggle come June, so I gotta clear out my backlog asap. I don't think any of the Fariune games are super long, but I should use one of these days off (today and tomorrow) to polish off some stuff.

[*LaI*]

I've been wanting Earthlock for about half a year and as usual, am waffling like...well, like a waffle, basically. Stick some butter and sugary strawberries on me...that's how waffley I am. The game has got its fair share of criticism, especially because the first version of it on Wii U was apparently pretty terrible...not fleshed out properly...but it has pretty good looks and it has farming of weird magical crops, so I wanna. And it's been improved a lot since the first version. Possibly the first two versions, as It was originally called Festival of Magic, and then Earthlock: Festival of Magic, and now on Switch is it just Earthlock. So there may have been more than one revision, I'm not sure, there.

But if I don't like the rest of the game too, it'll be a loss and end up rotting on the backlog.

I don't know if they're still planning for this to be the first part of a trilogy, or not.

Festival of Magic was the name during the first (failed) kickstarter. Got changed to Earthlock: Festival of Magic for the second. Now the improved version is just called Earthlock. Also, according to a post in Steam, they've already started working on the 2nd part.

Two things I'd like to mention. First, don't go in expecting an easy game, it's not. Not really hard or anything, but just not as easy as it's cute Second, there is a demo in Steam if you want to go try it.

[Kikki]

Ys: VII is my most anticipated game this summer, I think, because...I sort of get to build a town :D (Sort of. Even gathering survivors is acceptable.)

The Lost Child looked like a cross between an SMT or Persona game and an Ace Attorney game, to me. So first-person dungeon crawling a lot of the time like SMT, but investigative portions, as well...and attractive character design where the only people who look like children, ARE children. If it turns out to be pure dungeon-crawler I'll be disappointed, but so far my research into the game has produced mostly things that look good to me

Though that said, I am not pre-ordering it, as I want to wait until I can see a gameplay video so I can figure out what'll actually feel like to play it. The screenshots aren't working for me. Ys and 7'sCarlet I'm quite confident in liking, so Lost Child is the only one I'm waffling about in June.

My only game for July is Shining Resonance Refrain and I'm not sure of that yet, either. If I don't get Lost Child OR SRR, this summer is actually going to be very quiet for me, as there's a good chance I won't bother with Little Dragons Cafe (I HOPE it'll be something I like but I'm kind of doubting it as I don't have any success with Wada games.) which means there'll be nothing else of any length for me until ... Portia, I guess. Unless I decide to get Dragon Quest XI, but that's another one I need more info on, lol.

Just in time EDIT: Thanks for the info *LaI*

[Bluie]

I'll be getting both Shining Resonance Refrain and Little Dragons Cafe, so I can give you the deets once I've played them~

I'm so jelly that the Switch version of DQ11 is delayed. I'm going to have to avoid spoilers like the plague. If it comes out early next year, it'd be a great way to start 2019! I hope we get DQB2 before then though...!

[Ronin19]

I'll be getting both Shining Resonance Refrain and Little Dragons Cafe, so I can give you the deets once I've played them~

I'll be getting Little Dragon's Cafe as well, so I can share my experience. Hopefully, I'll beat Octopath Traveler before it comes out.

[Kikki]

Thanks Ronin and Bluie; I definitely need more details on LDC before I'll be able to decide. I love the ideas in it, but for me games designed by Wada always SOUND awesome and even look good, but then when I play them, I'm bored. Yet they still LOOK appealing so I can't not consider them, lol.

It's kind of cool that they're making a point of DQ11 being linear, NOT open-world. It's less confusing, tends to be more story-oriented, and since you know at what point of the game a player is going to be here, or there, they're able to fill those areas with suitable discoveries, rather than having to balance everything out in such a way as to make it suitable to be picked up at any point.

I have never liked Toriyama character designs but the world itself looks gorgeous, and I can probably get used to the rest, especially if the voices are good and the story/dialogue are good...but that's not something I know, yet.

There's almost no way my sister would be interested in this so I'll get it on PS4 this year if I learn enough to decide...and if it takes me longer I'll consider it again for the Switch release instead It certainly seems pretty, and I do really like linear games, probably quite a lot more than open-world ones. (Though the exploration in XCX was so glorious that it became a favourite, for sure. The field skill system kept things in order so that you couldn't progress in a way that was game-breaking. So much better than XC2's horrible field skills, I've gotta say!)

If I do get it this year I'll be careful to properly hide spoilers...but you might be the only one here to discuss it with anyway, Bluie, so I may not talk about it at all, lol.

I want DQB2 for sure, too, but having just finished the first game not that long ago and not gotten much into Terra Incognita yet, I feel patient about the coming of the second game. At least, right NOW I do. That could change at any moment

[RopeMaidenKirie]

Which things do you have left to do in DA2, Ronin?

A lot. Mainly romancing Fenris, Merrill, and Sebastian. Going to romance Anders and Isabela again for good measure; got to make sure I know who I want as canon. At the moment, I'm just recreating my first file, so Anders-mancer and mage supporter with Fenris and Merrill being the only rivals.

Ooooh Fenris is my fav; I hope you enjoy his romance! I always friendshipmance him as a mage which requires a lot of metagaming since you have to not bring him towards certain quests or else it pulls him too far down into rivalry.

I'll be getting both Shining Resonance Refrain and Little Dragons Cafe, so I can give you the deets once I've played them~

I'm so jelly that the Switch version of DQ11 is delayed. I'm going to have to avoid spoilers like the plague. If it comes out early next year, it'd be a great way to start 2019! I hope we get DQB2 before then though...!

Yeah I'm gonna be getting it for the PS4 because I can't wait and have been spoiler dodging since the JPN release (and already got hit with one light spoiler, ugh). Might end up rebuying it eventually for the Switch though to have it on the go! I also still need to beat DQ 1-3 and 6 to finish my complete run of all the games that have been released over here. Might do that if/when my backlog calms down a bit..



I haven't done much this month at all backlog-wise. While PoE2 is super fun, I think I'm gonna need to wait a few months for it to receive some bug patches before I continue unfortunately. Not really a big deal since I have other stuff to play in the meantime. I did beat a few smaller indies though! AER and Lara Croft GO. Pretty fun short games!

My current outlook for the future for June:

Detroit - (comes out in May but I'll need to wait for June to pick it up)
Vampyr
Jurassic World Evolution

July is Octopath and August I'll be waiting on all y'alls impressions of LDC before I take the dive. So luckily it seems July/August will be a good month to clear out stuff before September hits and I have DQ11 and Spyro Trilogy. Not to mention anything that's announced at E3..

[Kikki]

Ooh, I'd love a general opinion of DQ11 if you're getting it right away on PS4, Kirie I have played one DQ game...Sentinels of the Starry Sky on...I think DS? But I have NO memory of it, to the point where I wonder if I actually played it or not. (I THINK I did...but I really have no memories of having done so at all. Which makes me think maybe I bought it and then never actually got into it or something.)

DQXI has very pretty looks and I like story-oriented games a lot, so since I don't actually have that many games this year, I'm pretty interested. But it's as a person with no experience with the series at all.

[Bluie]

Thankfully, almost no one I know in RL or online is suuuper into DQ (i'm probably the biggest fan of it in my friend circle) so I'll just have to watch out on places like GameFaqs and Tumblr, hopefully.

I think gonna put all my effort into Dragon Quest Builders for the rest of the month besides the last splatfest at the end of this week and a little Farinue collection on the side. Wanna get most of my immediate backlog squared away before June releases.

Also, I have this big hankering to play Xenoblade 2 again, but i've legit done everything the game has to offer, including released DLC. I think I might be going through some sort of withdrawal lol.

[Ronin19]

Which things do you have left to do in DA2, Ronin?

A lot. Mainly romancing Fenris, Merrill, and Sebastian. Going to romance Anders and Isabela again for good measure; got to make sure I know who I want as canon. At the moment, I'm just recreating my first file, so Anders-mancer and mage supporter with Fenris and Merrill being the only rivals.

Ooooh Fenris is my fav; I hope you enjoy his romance! I always friendshipmance him as a mage which requires a lot of metagaming since you have to not bring him towards certain quests or else it pulls him too far down into rivalry.

I want to go for friendship. I'm planning on doing a one-handed warrior with him, so it should be easy, but I'm a huge mage supporter in DA2.

I haven't done much this month at all backlog-wise. While PoE2 is super fun, I think I'm gonna need to wait a few months for it to receive some bug patches before I continue unfortunately. Not really a big deal since I have other stuff to play in the meantime. I did beat a few smaller indies though! AER and Lara Croft GO. Pretty fun short games!

My current outlook for the future for June:

Detroit - (comes out in May but I'll need to wait for June to pick it up)
Vampyr
Jurassic World Evolution

July is Octopath and August I'll be waiting on all y'alls impressions of LDC before I take the dive. So luckily it seems July/August will be a good month to clear out stuff before September hits and I have DQ11 and Spyro Trilogy. Not to mention anything that's announced at E3..

What you say about July/August is what I thought about April/May, and then the sales hit. Your break is about when the Steam Summer Sale ends; I think rumors say it starts mid-late June

Currently, this is what I'm looking at:
May - Banner Saga, Hyrule Warriors, Yakuza 0 (I have a coupon for it, am interested, and i get paid that day, so yay!)
June - Vampyr, Banner Saga 2 (I'm thinking it comes out here; 1 comes out in May and 3 comes out in July)
July - Octopath Traveler, Splatoon 2 DLC, Banner Saga 3
August - Little Dragon's Cafe
Summer 2018 - Re:Legend (haven't heard anything from them regarding release date, but June 2018 is when they expect to roll out rewards for backers) and My Time at Portia for Switch (last I heard, that was their goal to release it)

Banner Saga and Yakuza I'm wary on since the former is difficult but I'm willing to try it and Yakuza looks interesting but I'm not sure if I'll truly like it as videos don't do it justice.

Also, I've added Harvest Moon 64 and Bomberman 64 to my backlog. Thanks, Virtual Console. Depending on if I like Earthbound, I might get Earthbound Beginnings.

E3 and Steam Summer Sale are wallet killers though; just a month left for both to happen.