Backlog 2020

[Night Owl]

Well I got further than I did last time in Persona Q and then proceeded to immediately put it down. The last floor of the Inaba Pride Exhibit is hell and I really don't feel like doing the puzzle. I know the next floor is the boss fight, and then it's the last Dungeon, but seriously... I really, really, really hate the Inaba Pride Exhibit. Oh well, progress is progress.

Instead I started up Etrian Odyssey Nexus! Much more fun. The mapping is more oddly satisfying. However, my urge to play Fire Emblem Three Houses started back up, and I really want to finish the last route in the game before the next DLC comes out so I can replay my favorite route with the added story DLC. It's been so long since I've seen the Blue Lions.

I've been thinking about picking Code Vein back up soon too. I really should play it before the DLC comes out too. Man, I've got more than a few games to beat.

[Kikki]

Ah, do tell us a bit about Etrian Odyssey Nexus when you've played enough of it Particularly compared to previous entries in the series. (I really like the Untold EO games, though I know this isn't one of them.)

I have finished Act 2 of Torchlight II. I don't know how long Act 3 is, but it's the last part...so I should be at least 50% done, now. My gear is pretty good now, too, and my level pretty acceptable, so...hopefully Act 3 won't take me forever to get through. I thought I'd intersperse other games with this, but just not playing for a little while puts me back in the mood for Torchlight, so it's okay. I've always been better at concentrating on one game at a time anyway.

EDIT: I'd just like to add that I'm enjoying that fact that my current weapon (an axe) is called 'Utimatum'. No kidding, it's an ultimatum. The 'or else' is not so subtly implied.

EDIT 2: Unexpected events barred, I should have Torchlight II completed tomorrow, as I only have one quest left in the whole game (though there is post game content where you can keep levelling up in strength and fame, if you want, plus NG+, if you just feel like smashing ugly things up and getting famous for it.) Actually, I just have the final boss battle, since I put up a portal just before entering the boss lair and then quit. Not sure if I need to do any gear/stat changing before I go in or not. I don't really feel like it, lol...I think I'd rather just go in and whack him.

Only now figured out that I can turn off that icky gory blood splatter in the settings. Wish I could also turn off bugs! What is the point of them? You can step on them and squash them into a little extra gore on an already gore-laden field. (Less so if you turn off splatter effects.) Yay.

EDIT 3: Finished Torchlight II, but I can't even say how much I'm hating playing Wondersong during these horrible platforming sections. It's a very cute game...reminds me of something my sisters and I would have played as kids...but cute only entertains me for maybe an hour, then I want something else. When all the problems were solved by singing, I was okay to simply follow the story...but this platforming is horrible. I'll finish it, but if there's much more of this, it'll be with my teeth gritted. It's cute and unique and interesting, but...no. No platforming. It just stresses me out and frustrates me. I think I've just gotten through the factory, so...maybe half way done?

[Bluie]

Fire Emblem Heroes makes me so irrationally angry sometimes. While I'm aware that it's a gacha and everything is luck based at the end, I feel like the game purposely starts to be idiotic just to spite me. I play this game daily, the first thing I do when I wake up as it chases the drowsy away. Besides trying to get specific characters from banners every once and awhile, I've made it my in-game goal to collect all the dragon units. Out of the 28 dragon units the game has, I'm missing five of them - Myrrh, Nagi, Idunn, M!Dream Corrin, and Sothis. All of them are in the regular 5* rare pool except for Sothis who is a special mythic unit who only shows up in special banners. When there isn't a banner focusing on any of these characters, I meticulously save summoning orbs - even buy a few from specials so I have a good stash when need be.

The past few months I've gone through 700+ orbs trying to get Nagi and Idunn and having nothing but stupid pity break units I don't give a flip about. Who's stupid idea was to put ROY, the easily summoned as a DEMOTE, in the focus banner with Idunn. EVERY FREAKING RED 5* OUT OF THIS BANNER I GOT WAS ROY OR WORTHLESS PITY BREAKS and I'm about to lose my damn mind. I'm not so crazy as the players that literally sell their blood for orb money, but ffs, i'm beyond frustrated.

GIVE ME MY DRAGONS, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS. I GIVE YOU MONEY BECAUSE I LOVE AND CARE ABOUT YOU, AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY THAT.

Every time I see Nagi and Idunn on the battle field I give a bitter glare to the AI. If I didn't like this game so much id've quite ages ago.

----------

Last night I finished the Realm Reborn content in Final Fantasy XIV. The final dungeon is around and hour to complete (due to unskipable cutscenes) and my SiL ran it with me cause she was bored and wanted that sweet, sweet 'helping out a newbie' bonus exp. It was a ton of fun and I really like how the story wrapped up too - though now I'm hungry for the rest of it too! I wanna show off my character because I've become really attached to her.

Spoiler:

I'm gonna finish off what's left of my trial (15 days I think) and then take a break. Ni No Kuni II, you're next!

[Kikki]

Commander Keen is no easier than when I was a kid. It may be more difficult. I'm going to complete it, though! I'll just have to save before every world and restart any time I die, or I'd end the game by losing all my lives within the first world or two. It's supposed to be a two hour game, but I always take two or three times longer than the average finishing time on platforming games. I have to retry SO MANY TIMES. I figure this will take me all month, done one world at a time and then needing a break from it, lol. But you could say that this game has sort of been on my backlog for 30 years, lol. About time I actually played it through!

So I have Wandersong and Commander Keen on the go right now. Wandersong should be about half done, at least. Just gotta power through.

~

I'm not real chipper today and want a bit of cheering up, and Nintendo announced a 30% off sale (up to) for New Year's, so I thought I'd see if anything I wanted was on it. (I have a bunch of gold coins and a Nintendo Gift Card balance waiting on my account right now, too.) There's only 3 things I want on it, though, and I only sort of want them.

Spoiler:

Hyrule Warriors. I've always wanted that, but I know I might not like it that much because it's really just a fighting game. (Though I like hack 'n' slash more than, say, platformers or shooters or even puzzle types.) I think seeing Link kicking booty in such a beautiful art style would be nice even if I only wanted to play it half an hour here and there...but I don't want to add to my backlog, and it's expensive even on 30% off, that's still $56 CAD, pre-tax. :/

Neo Cab. I wanted that one a lot, at first, but then I tried the demo. It was the way the protagonist needed constant monitoring to keep her from going ballistic. I felt like I was babysitting an emotionally unstable spoiled brat. She couldn't hold a civil conversation with a very nice photographer who wanted to photograph an architecturally interesting building because the owner of the building was a corporation that had once fired her when they automated their taxi service. The story seemed really interesting but the need to tiptoe around Lina's feelings, to the point where I could never use the conversational branches I wanted to, bugged me. So I've forgone it, so far, though I'm still curious about where the story goes. It's relatively inexpensive, even on full price.

Fitness Boxing. Been interested in it from the start but I already have Ring Fit and feel it's the better program anyway. Not that having 2 on hand to choose from each day would be bad, in fact it would be good, and it wouldn't add to my backlog, but buying a workout game wouldn't really perk me up.

So, not sure what'll end up happening there. If I REEEEEEALLY want a pick-me-up I guess I'll end up going for Hyrule Warriors but I really don't want that +1 for my backlog.

[Shan O 123]

Fire Emblem Heroes makes me so irrationally angry sometimes. While I'm aware that it's a gacha and everything is luck based at the end, I feel like the game purposely starts to be idiotic just to spite me. I play this game daily, the first thing I do when I wake up as it chases the drowsy away. Besides trying to get specific characters from banners every once and awhile, I've made it my in-game goal to collect all the dragon units. Out of the 28 dragon units the game has, I'm missing five of them - Myrrh, Nagi, Idunn, M!Dream Corrin, and Sothis. All of them are in the regular 5* rare pool except for Sothis who is a special mythic unit who only shows up in special banners. When there isn't a banner focusing on any of these characters, I meticulously save summoning orbs - even buy a few from specials so I have a good stash when need be.

The past few months I've gone through 700+ orbs trying to get Nagi and Idunn and having nothing but stupid pity break units I don't give a flip about. Who's stupid idea was to put ROY, the easily summoned as a DEMOTE, in the focus banner with Idunn. EVERY FREAKING RED 5* OUT OF THIS BANNER I GOT WAS ROY OR WORTHLESS PITY BREAKS and I'm about to lose my damn mind. I'm not so crazy as the players that literally sell their blood for orb money, but ffs, i'm beyond frustrated.

GIVE ME MY DRAGONS, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS. I GIVE YOU MONEY BECAUSE I LOVE AND CARE ABOUT YOU, AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY THAT.

Every time I see Nagi and Idunn on the battle field I give a bitter glare to the AI. If I didn't like this game so much id've quite ages ago.

Lol I have this too. Though I play it totally free. The progress is much longer.

[Harvest Moon kawaii]

Spoiler:

Recently beat:

Pokemon Shield
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX Demo (Switch)

Backlog:

(3DS, Nintendo Switch, and PC) = A lot (over 134 games)

Currently playing:

Ring Fit Adventure (Switch)
Steins;Gate Elite (Switch)

Games I have pre-ordered:

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (March 20, 2020)
Digimon Survive (2020)

Games I want:

Luigi's Mansion (3DS)
Rune Factory 4 Special (digital-only in the US) (2020) (Switch)
Rune Factory 5 (Switch; 2020)
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou (Switch) (Japanese only)
My Time At Portia (Switch)
Snack Wold The Dungeon Crawl Gold (February 14, 2020)
YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of This World (Switch)
Detective Pikachu 2 (Switch; release date unknown)
Story of Seasons: Reunion of Mineral Town (Switch) (West: 2020)
Robotics; Notes Elite (Switch) (Coming 2020 in the West)
Robotics; Notes Dash (confirmed for the West)
Yo-kai Watch 4 (Switch; confirmed for the West)
Summer Pockets (Confirmed English-language version for PC coming in 2020)
Rewrite+ (PC)
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX (Switch; March 6, 2020)

Games beat in 2020: 0

Games bought in 2020: At least 2 ( of those with confirmed release dates)

I'm stuck on the third world boss for Ring Fit Adventure and started playing Steins;Gate Elite.

I'm so excited by today's Pokemon Direct. I can't wait for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX that comes out March 6, 2020 and the Expansion pass for Pokemon Shield!!

Today, I beat the demo for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX (save data carries over to the main game). And I hope to get through the demos for New Super Lucky's Tale and Neo Cab to free up some space.

[greensara]

Decided to finally pick up Stardew Valley with the sale that's going in the eShop right now, along with Mushroom Quest, so that's two more to add to my list, lol. I may not get to playing them for a while with all the other games I want to work on before the busy Spring season starts for me. Real life growing is a lot more tiring and hectic, but fun too.

I think I have almost made it through the little warrior chapter of Little Dragons Cafe and I like it so far, especially the art. I am hoping it gets a little more difficult as the story continues.

I am finished with the desert section of Monster Hunter Stories, but want to finish some more side quests before I continue with the story. I am also going to try to get some more armor and weapons upgrades first too.

I also started a second file in DQB2 because I wanted to play through the storyline again after seeing the epilogue. I am about halfway through Khrumbul Dun, if I remember correctly. Goodness, I almost forgot how addicting this game was! I know I ought to be working on getting through Pokemon Sword too before the DLC drops, but as soon as I try to pick it up and play a little more (got to the second gym now) I start thinking about more things to build, lol.

[Kikki]

Oh man, yeah. I've already played DQB2 twice, but just looking at the 700+ screenshots on my Switch (and I'm not even particularly into taking screenshots) and seeing the DQB2 stuff on there (as well as some stuff I've totally forgotten from DQB1) makes me want to build some more. I saw this one, of the 'drop dead' dormitory I'd made in the back of the botched up castle the Moonbrooke peeps had put together (does that even sound like a GOOD thing? But the 'drop dead' dormitory is the fanciest dorm, that gets the most hearts. Even though it sounds awful.) and realized that I hadn't landscaped outside the door/windows. I left it as it was, with just some snow and a lump of rock blocking the view. I also didn't give them any special flooring or wall stuff!



I had an urge to drop everything else and boot DQB2 back up to make a big winter garden or a really scenic graveyard out there, and knock down the little hill to open the view up to the ocean, lol. Then I think I want to make hanging gardens, and a dark underground mushroom-filled nightclub type of thing, and other stuff, and it's hard not to just keep going back to it. I DO go back to it if I'm feeling cabin-feverish from winter. Something about this sort of sim feels...a bit like gardening, I guess. Like having a life outdoors when that's not really possible irl.

~

Not gonna progress on Wandersong or Commander Keen today, probably. They're not really my thing, so I kind of have to psyche myself up to play them, like they're a chore, lol.

[Pachi]

I've picked up Stardew Valley as well! I don't think I'll be playing it right away (gotta finish FE first;;;), but I plan to play it alongside Octopath after I complete FE. I think I'm at ch18 or 19 now, so I estimate finishing it probably 1-2 weeks from now as much as I love the Golden Deer kids (they're still the best), I must say, Blue Lions has been a wild rollercoaster ride, and I haven't even finished!

I might also pick up Transistor on the eshop...

[Mikodesu]

@Samansu Super...super late on this, but...thanks!! Hope you were able to get back into Ring Fit successfully.

I'm stuck on the third world boss for Ring Fit Adventure and started playing Steins;Gate Elite.

JUST in case...if it might help

Spoiler:

If you make a bunch of smoothies and make sure to keep yourself fully healed, I think you'll be okay. That one was tough for me too. :/ The game definitely tries to kick your butt there. Best of luck!!

Haven't managed to play anything else other than Ring Fit this week...but tomorrow puts me at day 14, so...whee. I really shouldn't have exercised today. Had a couple...adult beverages...with dinner, and then exercised and it was leg day and I was not prepared for leg day.

Spoiler:

Mountain climber NO. My legs hurt and my feet kept coming out of my shoes.

I do have a severe itch to play a Zelda game, though. Which one is anybody's guess. Maybe a "speed run" is in order.

[Kikki]

I'm starting to find all of the Wandersong mechanics super, SUUUUPER un-fun. I want to quit. But I hate to quit, so I'm still going. The matching tunes with the...falling ghost? If I can call it that...that was freakin' impossible. She changed up any time I made a mistake, too, so I could never just practise enough to get it right. It's perfectly fine when I can see what to do, but often I can't tell if I just have to sing the notes (try it, doesn't work) or time them exactly the same (try it, it doesn't work) or if I have to start at an exact time, or ...etc. The falling ghost was especially weird. She'd only sing two notes and then her third (in a series of four) would explode so that I couldn't tell what it was, and I'd automatically fail that round and have to try again. Eventually I realized that I had to sit and wait and press each note at a very specific time, but it took a LOT of tries before I could see that that was how it was supposed to work.

Spoiler:

This just isn't my kind of game. It isn't something I can do. When I bought it I figured it'd be pretty easy but it's been mostly frustration.

It really drives home the 'never buy a game you know could end up more frustrating than fun'. Which mean eliminating any type of game mechanic I am utterly miserable at, such as platforming and most types of puzzles. Or high speed button combinations or increasingly difficult memory sequences. I suspect I'd think the game was cute all the way through, if I didn't keep getting to sections of gameplay that make me want to hurl the controller to the floor and jump up and down on top of it while punching the television screen.

Heh heh. Really, you just can't buy games for one aspect you think looks cute or fun if you see two or three others you think look like a burden. I'm glad I got this on a good sale; it's not something I could ever replay.

At least the interaction between Bard (though I called him Brad, for some reason. Accident?) and Miriam is interesting. I looooved Bard's knowing little cat smile...juuuust a little smug...in the Crater.

EDIT: Finished Wandersong. Plenty of cute interactions and a few very sweet moments, but overall, just not my thing. It was exhausting to play, lol.

[Bluie]

I'm sorry it wasn't your thing, Kiki, but atleast it's now checked off your list! I'll keep in mind potentially cumbersome mechanics for future recommendations.

After all my huffing and puffing over the stupid banner choices in Fire Emblem Heroes, I managed to pull an Idunn in the last few hours of it's run with my very last orbs. 100% luck and no pity breaks. I just hope the upcoming banners dont have anyone I like or one of my missing dragons, because I'm broke and need some time to collect the daily free orbs again.

And now, I'm gonna talk about FFXIV again, because I had my first bad experience with it. Overall, yesterday was a blast that ended on a low note. I unlocked raids which are honestly the best thing I've played in this game. Alliance raids especially, because having 24 people at once boss rush is both pure chaos and extremely fun. I did the Crystal Tower twice yesterday it was that much fun! However, I also unlocked hard mode versions of dungeons and some of them are brutal in more that just difficulty. This particular one I decided to run requires teamwork from the entire party that everyone had to know what action they're doing on the first boss, or we all die horribly. I admittedly didn't, but with the help of a veteran who realized it was my first run, I got my roll down by the 3rd try. The problem then became that no one else was doing their job and I had to overdo mine, thus dying - and when the healer dies, everyone dies. At the time, I thought it was completely my fault, I apologized, the veteran told me it was OK bit it wasn't 'working out', and then everyone ragequit the dungeon. Mortified at how I wasted everyone's time, I went to the internet to look up strategies to run it again, and lo and behold; it wasn't my fault entirely. It was really frustrating to realize that essentially because others weren't pulling their weight I overworked and then got blamed for party wipes. So, in conclusion, I don't ever want to do hard mode dungeons again unless it's with people I know or people who know how to respect their healer and do their job! >:/

Man do I want to do more Alliance raids tho. I CANT WAIT to unlock the Nier Automata one!!

[Kikki]

Oh, no worries I bought it because I'd always thought it looked cute and unique. And it WAS cute and unique, and I even had a pang when Hala finally got to sing to her mother. Also, the hugs in this game were ADORABLE. It's unique to the point where I've never played anything like it and wouldn't have been able to decide if it was for me or not without actually playing it. A few sections were fun...I liked it when it was clear what I needed to do. (well, okay...NOT the platforming bits. I hate platforming wholesale!) But my extreme clutzy slowness can't be underestimated. Also I think the BIGGEST problem was that a lot of the time, I'd be staring at the screen not knowing what to do.

Spoiler:

The mechanics weren't intuitive, for me. I mean, when I'd see a bird singing or a person humming out the coloured notes, sure, I knew to sing them back. But when I saw arrows being thrown out, and wobbling around shakily, I didn't know what to do in response! I'd make the same noise back, but...FAIL. Turned out I had to wait until the arrow was basically over top of my character, which took me a million tries before I realized it, since that is the ONLY time in the game it works that way. There were several other times like that, too where the challenge wan't similar enough to anything else for me to figure out what I was supposed to do. That ramped up the frustration factor really quickly.

I tend to be someone who keeps a good walk-through bookmarked whenever I'm playing anything, because I do NOT enjoy not knowing what to do next. So anything like that will always frustrate me. (I'm like that IRL, too, though. I won't do anything spontaneously...gives me anxiety...and I always want to know exactly what is expected of me, so that I can promptly do it and move on.) Sure, I can figure things out eventually, but I don't even get any satisfaction out of it when I DO figure it out so...why bother?

A few things in Wandersong were so obtuse (for me) that even though I DID find a good walk-through for it, WITH videos I could check if I really wasn't getting it...sometimes I STILL didn't understand the goal of the section, or what I was supposed to do to get through it.

~

I could never deal with having to play with others to finish things (in WoW, in my case)...I wanted to do everything solo. Which is impossible for some things unless you were vastly overleveled, but. But. I just don't interact well. I never know what other people want me to do (and I don't want to interact with them long enough to find out, lol) and that's stressy. "BY SELF!", as my dad always says when we talk about the way I did everything as a tot. (And forever afterward. Apparently I said 'by self' instead of 'myself'?) This is why the Paladin class was a great one for me, lol, since I never want to fight from range anyway, and I just like to whack things up close until they die. Plus I'm always a goody-two-shoes by nature. But I guess multiplayer is a huge draw for a lot of people. I have never once been able to enjoy multiplayer. Even in Animal Crossing, with my own sisters...I don't LIKE using multiplayer, I just want to trade whatever I need to and be done with it, asap, so I can get back to doing my own thing. (I never did get praise for 'works well in groups', lol.)

Well...I hope your next multiplayer experience is better, Bluie...that everyone pulls their weight! If they weren't newbies, shouldn't they have known that they were overburdening you with more than your share of the work?

[Bluie]

I'm not 100% sure the others knew what they were doing or were refusing to do so. The boss we were stuck on NEEDS to be stunned by the tank before it uses a move that reduces one party member's HP to 1. While stunned, the DPSes need to unleash everything they have while the healer needs to use Esuna to get rid of rebuffs, heal, and add regen to the tank so they can successfully stun again.

Not ONCE did our tank stun it, and then it would kill someone in the party, which I could revive, yes, but if I died, which happened almost every time because no stun and enemies are naturally attracted to healers when the tanks don't do their job, everything went to « Cow Poopoo ». The veteran was a red mage, so they were able to revive me if needed, but then the entire balance was off and we'd all die eventually anyways.

But yes, rage quit like it's entirely the healer newbie's fault because she couldn't do her job properly due to bad teamwork. :/

IDK if the others were new too, because they had cleared it before afaik, but still had their 'sprouts' (icons for people with less that 160 hours in game). Regardless, it sucked and I'll be consulting my Free Company in the future if I ever want to run it again.

Edit: it just occurred to me that they maybe wanted ME to stun it??? I can with Holy, but I NEED to focus on your health bars, NOT DO BOTH OF OUR JOBS. GOOOOOOSHHHH.

[Kikki]

How are people even supposed to know what they're wanted to do if it isn't specifically spelled out? The need to communicate with complete strangers is one of the things that puts me off, because I can't see how it can be avoided if any multiplayer venture is to be successful. I mean, sure. A healer will be expected to heal. A shield-carrying character with high HP is probably gonna tank. Someone with very high strength and a powerful weapon in each hand is gonna be doing a lot of DPS. But beyond that, it seems necessary to talk, to figure out what each person is expected to do via spells and items and status effects and so on, especially since almost all classes cross over a bit with other classes.

If they DID expect you to stun, is that really something you should have just KNOWN? Seems to me you think it was the tank's job. If that's a natural thing to think, then why would they think YOU should be the stunner? And that you should just KNOW to do it?

I don't understand multiplayer. It sounds to me like it requires you to be psychic.