Backlog 2021

[Kikki]

The first month (in-game) of ANB is definitely a killer, but once you get beyond that, it's absolutely the best Bokumono game for me. (Though Trio is way smoother and has great QoL improvements and way better events.)

I can't try the demo until tomorrow, but Knockout Home Fitness is looking like a disappointment. I knew it had no way to track your leg movements, but I didn't know you could fool it entirely just by flicking your wrist in time with the beat, and it'd assume you were following perfectly and give you a top score.

PLUS...the only thing it offers is a fairly high-intensity 10, 20 or 30 minute workout, and afterward options for shorter add-ons. I used to be all about the high-intensity stuff, but that's not an option any more. I end up either straight into the chiropractor's office or onto a mountain of pills if I try to do anything high intensity or high impact. That's why I say I have to sneeeeeeak up on exercise. I have to kind of...not let my body realize it's doing anything more than a casual walk, or it's a ticket directly to Pain Central, even if the exercise itself felt good and was accomplished well.

Kinda looks like that won't be possible with KHF. Well, I'll try the demo anyway, though.

And I'm done! Life is largely back to normal starting tomorrow I figure I'll end up sleeping a lot until my body's convinced I haven't been killed, lol, but that's fine. I should be able to try my new greenhouse as a workout spot tomorrow. If I wake up at all tomorrow, that is! (I will, of course. I've never slept an entire day away, not even when jet-lagged.) So as long as I'm properly on my feet, I'll squeeze that demo in somewhere.

I still need to finish ONE more game in 2021 to be satisfied. Haven't decided which citizen of Backlog should be that game. Probably Age of Calamity, but I'm just not motivated, since it's not the story that leads into BotW itself. That was what I really wanted...I wanted it to make me want to replay BotW rather than give me extra little character bits, and it can't do that. Though I guess there's a tiny chance it could tie in to BotW2 in some way, which would be interesting. I guess, then, if I don't get into AoC, it'll be either Olive Town or Slime Rancher, to be my 18th game this year.

[Ronin19]

So I'm on chapter 5 of Eastward. If I knew early on this game would be a gut puncher, I may have picked up my pace on the game. I kind of saw it coming; foreshadowing is a hell of a thing, but it doesn't make it any less sad. So this means I'm about halfway done with the game and it's picking up. I love it. I don't think it's as good as Life is Strange True Colors, but I'm enjoying it. I've got to beat it before the 15th; I forgot that The Good Life comes out then. Can't wait to see how it is; I backed it years ago.

[Bluie]

I am so close to finishing the Code:Realize trilogy. This has been an almost 2 week journey, but it feels like it's been ages. I just have Lupin's Christmas Date (around 60 min to complete), all the Triangle dates (10 in total that run around 20 min each) and then the Special epilogues (5 in total, 40-60 min each). I'm as fast reader so I can probably shave these down a bit, but on the other hand, I'm starting to get easily distracted while I'm playing. I think I'm having visual novel fatigue, again. While I am enjoying this, I'm also just really wishing to move onto other games. My long awaited Monster Crown is unlocked and I wanna play ittttt....! Soon, very soon!

Instead of a 'backlog' I've made a 'plan' of sorts for the rest of the year up to March 2022 in regards to my upcoming releases. It's gonna help me not be so stressed about everything on my plate, methinks. So, the plan is;

The Rest of October 2021
- Play Monster Crown and Dungeon Encounters, and Voice of Cards leisurely (may bleed over into November)
- Work on FFXIV's Moogle Tomestone event

November 2021
- Continue doing the Moogle Tomestone event (if needed) and finish the Share FATES I've been off and on working on
- Play Endwalker until I finish it (may bleed over into December)
- Pick at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond here and there

December 2021
- Fully commit to Pokemon Brilliant Diamond
- Get caught up in Monster Hunter Rise

January 2022
- Play and finish Blue Reflection: Second Light
- Fully commit to Black Desert Online until Pokemon Legends: Arceus releases

February 2022
- Play and finish Pokemon Legends: Arceus
- Fill in any empty time with FFXIV or BDO

March 2022
- I'm taking the majority of the month off to play both Triangle Strategy and Rune Factory 5 (which will probably bleed over into April)

And that's all I got for now. Everything else I want to play next year has no release date or no localization announcement (and some of them are probably 2023 games). I'll play Pokémon Shining Pearl once the Pokémon Home update drops, Monster Hunter Rise: Daybreak will probably be my big 'summer' game, and I'll work on Umineko whenever the mood strikes me. Might pick at Animal Crossing too if the update is significant enough.

[Kikki]

I've read an advance review about Monster Crown, Bluie, and while they love it for the content and wanted to give it a good review based on that, they had to give it a neutral one instead because of it greatly lacking in polish and some QoL or technical issues that they felt left it feeling like it was still in beta. So maybe it's not bad if you end up waiting a little on it? Sounds like it really needs at least one update to smooth out the way the game operates on Switch.

Though that of course depends on your tolerance for things that feel a bit unfinished or lacking in QA checking. They mention unskippable cutscenes (I believe repetitive ones that happen over and over, not major story cutscenes or things you wouldn't even WANT to skip), broken camping mechanics, and glitches that force you to reset your software coming up every couple of hours of playtime. But they say it's a real treat...if not for that. Just that the 'that' in this case is probably more than the average person would be able to put up with. (But YMMV in these cases! I think that applies mostly to people who've never played games in still in a beta phase. Those who do might not find those issues bothersome at all.) Both reviews I read mention freezes that require a restart.

[Simply Unknown]

I finished crowning all the maps for Pokemon Snap on Sunday, so I decided it was a good time to return to Galar for a nuzlocke. I beat Nessa earlier today without Dynamaxing, which was pretty awesome! Thank « Harvest Goddess » that Leafeon is such a tank, probably wouldn't have risked it without him.

I've been iffy on catches with some really good ones like Mudbray and Growlithe and a lucky Rookidee (which is amazing in Galar) as well as a Woobat, a Drilbur with an attack lowering nature, and a Swinub I want to use, but he's so frail! Eh, we'll see how things go later on.

[Bluie]

Thanks for the warning, Kiki. I did buy and play the game a year or so ago on steam when it was in early access, so I guess I know what I'm getting into regardless? Dungeon Encounters comes out in a day or so and the Moogle Tome event starts next week, so if I have to sit on it, I can with more or less no worries. I can always slot it to a later date in 2022 when it's (most likely) in a better state too. The dev is very passionate, so I'm sure he's gonna jump on fixing stuff asap.

[Ronin19]

Well, I read that Disco Elysium on Switch has some technical issues. However, it went on sale on Steam, so I grabbed it there. I played it for about an hour and a half and I died. Guess I'll be starting over with a different build; I didn't think I would need physical all that much, but that proved me wrong.

I'm currently on Chapter 7 of Eastward, but I just have days where I don't want to play it. I do enjoy the game when I play it (except for an added-on stealth section I felt that didn't need to be included), but the game is enjoyable.

[Kikki]

It's not really any of my business, but you've been looking forward to Monster Crown so much that I wanted to make sure you had the best chance of really enjoying it when you do finally play it, so...figured I should mention the issues in case you wanted to delay a little to give yourself the best chance of that. Though if you're the type to save often (and not care about repetitive unskippable cutscenes and a mechanic or two that doesn't work smoothly) then it's not like it's a big deal.

Plus I believe this is a SWITCH problem, not a base problem...the dev is probably hearing about it for the first time now that the game is out on console. So a patch could be forthcoming very soon, for all we know.

I still haven't been playing. I've been reading! I do squeeze in a few minutes here and there of ANB and Farm Together, but I'm not playing anything seriously. I feel like I should tackle a very game-like game, like Age of Calamity, as a break from all the niche farmy, life-sim stuff. It's not that I want to, I feel like I SHOULD, for some reason. As if there is any such thing.

Greenhouse has no door as yet but that doesn't matter. I got my electricity out there, and I put up the shelf to load my portable screen/dock/dvd-player onto whenever I need them, and I have a carrying case to easily load all my tech in and out at any time, so I just have to buy the power bar I forgot so that I have multiple outlets instead of just one, and I can actually use it for Switch workouts very soon. Tomorrow! I can actually use my rower, stepper, or my trampoline in there, already, if I don't want to wait on my hook-up. Knockout Home Fitness demo first, then will start rotating workouts to try to 'disguise' them from my brain, lol, to keep it from noticing certain muscles starting to tone up or something. I'm hoping that'll work. It hates when I make any muscle tears, even micro ones, and throws a kicking, screaming hissy fit, complete with nerve pain or inflammation or whatever, all over the place.

:p~ on you, brain! If I have to trick you into letting me exercise, well, I WILL.

[Katgirl]

To add the Monster Crown switch version stuff, there is actually a patch already in the pipeline. The dev was hoping it would get through before launch but it didn't so it should make it through in the next few days. The patch should fix most of the issues the switch version is having. The dev's also been super responsive with bug fixes on the steam page and even offered to refund someone who encounter a bad bug on the switch version. So the dev really seems to care and hopefully things will be fixed in a few days.

Honestly patching and game reviews are one of the weird things about the gaming world now a days. Since reviews are usually written at launch and then the devs patch/fix the issues... buuuut the less than glowing reviews are still there lowering it's metacritic while complaining about issues that aren't there anymore. And if it's a lesser known title the review sites rarely revisit them to update the score.

I'm planning on getting Monster Crown tho I'm in the middle of playing Nexomon 1 which I'm really enjoying so far. So I'll probably wait until I finish that and/or the Monster Crown patch. idk if I'd say I like Nexomon 1 or Nexomon Extinction better. I think Extinction's story is better with humans living under foot in a war of monsters as well as other elements. Tho I sort of already know some of the twists from Nexomon 1 from playing Extinction so idk if that's affected things.

[Bluie]

Lol, forgot about Voice of Cards in my list (that I'll honestly be using as a guide to keep me on track) so I edited it in accordingly. I love Yoko Taro's works and even preordered the deluxe edition, so IDK how I even forgot it in the first place. Don't think it'll make much difference as it seems to not be an overly long game (on the surface level).

I ended up binging the rest Code:Realize Wintertide Miracles when I got home from work yesterday. I'm glad to be done, but I did overall enjoy myself. My opinion stands that St. Germain is best boy and the Finis route is the best choice. I will say though that there was some weird decisions with St. Germain's special epilogue, rather some contradictory writing. Spoilers below(Also involving the Cantarella route):

Spoiler:

So, Idea will crash St. Germain's Christmas party post Finis route because they feel like it, but refuse to go to his wedding with Cardia in his route because ???? The only difference between the routes is that St. Germain is no longer part of Idea in his route while in Finis' he gets put on 'break' from the group. They're just like "Oh, St. Germain, we can't go to your wedding because we're the spooky immortal group!" and then waste a CG on 'blessing' them, WHEN I JUST SAW YOU CRASHING A FREAKING CHRISTMAS PARTY IN A DIFFERENT TIMELINE.

Also, WHERE IS CANTARELLA IN ALL THESE WEDDING EPILOGUES??? I get that she didn't exist yet for Lupin's and Impey's in the previous games, but they went out of their way to establish the Gordon Family and include them, but not Cardia's literal sister? Cardia herself even realizes who she is before she goes off to get her surgery in France, which means she KNOWS, but Cantarella and her father are nowhere to be seen, like they didn't even need to be included in the first place. Said Father shows up in Sholmes epilogue, so I know the writer was allowed to use them elsewhere than their included story. It's just weird that Cardia and her chosen spouse are all like 'everyone is here to bless us!!!' and the writers forgot about her sister that was introduced in this game and is part of the common route so realistically she could be there. Guess she died in surgery??? We could argue that people coming directly from the previous games wouldn't know her, but you HAVE to do her story before the special epilogues will even unlock. As an aspiring writer, this drives me batty.

I was also up WAY too late playing Monster Crown. I thought I'd just boot it up and mess around for a bit, annnd then I got so into it I had a hard time putting it down. It's SO much fun, honestly a game I've been wanting for a long, long time. I love the GBC aesthetic, it's a nostalgic thing for me, but I really can't jive with how older games play anymore. Monster Crown hits this great sweet spot of looking and sounding old, but playing like something you'd expect is the norm these days. I haven't run into any issues so far, BUT I DID MANAGE TO CATCH TWO SHINIES?!?? I almost choked when I saw the first one, thankfully was able to catch it, but no less than 20 min later, I find and catch another. They're a 1/1000 chance according to the dev's twitter and are known as 'brilliants'. They change to every color in the rainbow and it shows on their overworld sprite that follows behind you too! I feel like all my accumulating luck after having a shiny use self destruct in Pokemon Platinum when I was 13 just got used all up. RIP my chances of finding a natural shiny in Brilliant Diamond next month!

[Ronin19]

Okay, I'm crossing off Eastward from my list. The game was fun and interesting up until chapter 6. I have to spoiler-tag my unhappiness/anger with the title.

Spoiler:

So chapters 1-5 seem to be about Sam and John finding a new home and a way to combat the miasma. Chapter 2 shows you how foul the miasma can be, wiping out villages and killing villagers. Chapters 3-5 show that John and Sam can be home in New Dam City. However, the miasma attacks and knocks Alva unconscious. This provokes her lover, Isabel, to travel to Ester City to wipe out the miasma. John and Sam follow. Now, this is where I begin to hate things.

Chapter 6 and 7 feel like filler. There's a fog that messes with time and chapter 6 deals with Hollywood monkeys. It feels like a filler episode. Chapter 7 has you do the Endless Eight saga from Haruhi Suzumiya, but only 4 times. You deliver mail and have to repeat it despite KNOWING you're in a time loop. Instead of doing things differently, the plot just gives you what you need to get out of it. Then comes the last dungeon, which is a speeding mess to try and stop this part of the dungeon from resetting. I've been okay doing them until I came to one where I've attempted 5 times and am losing my sanity over it.

Tl;dr, I'm done. I'm just done with Eastward. I'm on the cusp of the final chapter and I just can't.

[Kikki]

That's great that there's no problem enjoying Monster Crown so far, Bluie!

~

Also, just gonna say...I hate time loops. Even when Star Trek: TNG was one of my favourite shows (way back when I was a teenager, eek) I refused to watch that episode, Cause and Effect. I won't watch it as a repeat to this day, because, it bears repeating: I hate time loops. They are the most tiresome story device ever. It's a big reason why I haven't purchased Outer Wilds. Time loops! *rips hair out in aggravated aggravation*

~

I finally plugged all the new games I acquired (free or otherwise) into my backlog on Grouvee. I appear to have 9. No...10! I continually forget that I own Spiritfarer. It honestly hasn't made much of an impression on me at all, I guess, good or bad. I also forgot I got Journey to the Savage Planet on sale, but it's boring. I think I decided to abandon it? Mind you maybe I didn't play long enough; I was only an hour or two in and I was already bored, lol. Well, won't count it, anyway. So, 10 games. They are, in no particular order:

Spoiler:

• Garden Paws
• Harvest Moon: One World
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
• Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
• Slime Rancher: Plortable Edition (I just love that name!)
• Spiritfarer
• Staxel
• Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town
• Torchlight III

Okay, I lied. They are, in fact, in alphabetical order. How did I end up with 5 games beginning in S? Is that the letter of the year, or something?

I'm going to assign AoC to October, Olive Town to November, and One World (or Slime Rancher) to December. If I actually finish all those it'd give me...21 games for 2021. Works! Though I'm not stuck on it, even if I don't finish ANY more. I seem to be in more of a reading and 'doing' mood, which may be for the best anyway.

Oh wait! I still have one more game coming out this year (putting aside any otoges since I've been skipping buying them, as I'm just not into them lately unless I think they're going to be funny...I want cute, silly, fun, adorable stuff, not tragedy-fraught, world-in-mortal-jeopardy serious serious love stories, and the latter is so much more common in the world of otoges.) Grow: Song of the Evertree! Er, okay, will have to fit that one in somewhere, then. I'll probably play it right away and if it's good it'll push Olive Town and One World each back a notch.

[Mikodesu]

Holy crow something different. Just got done playing two and a half hours of Harvest Moon: One World! :D That was really nice, actually. Little more than I planned, but I haven't played anything in a few days. The only games I've touched since July have been Genshin Impact and Monster Hunter Stories 2, so the change of pace alone was great. Took about the span of an in game day to get back into the swing of things... and it went well, I think! Won a festival (by sheer dumb luck), got the hang of fishing again, got a couple requests turned in, and lucked into a couple events!

I have to be in the mood for a game like One World, because you either have to accept the pace of the game or Get Good TM. I'm still very torn on the pace of money making... Some parts of the grind are good, some parts are bad. Early game you shouldn't be able to cheese, but late game. Yes. All the cheese. Either way, I'm enjoying my time to keep playing. That's all that counts right now.


I honestly don't know when I'll need to buy another game. From my computer having all the issues it has I've got a fairly hefty PC backlog. For now there's One World - and Genshin when I'm willing to risk it. (Trying to keep the GPU slaughter to a minimum.) Kind of hoping Animal Crossing doesn't reclaim my soul... I don't have time for a third game.

[Kikki]

Been playing ACNH a few minutes a day, and it seems the key to my being happy with villagers is having ones who have good taste in clothes. Their good house exterior and appealing looks brings them into Windfall, but the taste in clothing is what makes it fun to keep them around.

Spoiler:

If they clothes they love are also ones that look great on them, then gifting them stuff and seeing them change into it (and then occasionally wear it from then onward) is fun. Pekoe is GREAT...not only does she have an awesome house, she looks so, so good in red and white 'cute' stuff! Fauna is also great...somehow she looks great in just about everything. I noticed that when I gave her a gift from someone else...a white Victorian dress. She's just the prettiest little thing in it, I could hardly believe it, lol. (It's not her preferred style, mind you...guess she wears it based on loving the colour alone.)

Lily's got a great house and good taste, too. Kitty as well has really great taste in clothes that look just right on her. I'm in trouble, though...I have THREE normals in my town, and no peppies, now! Shouldn't have gotten rid of Felicity I guess, even though her house is dull. And my normals are my favourite villagers to dress up and I have no idea which one to get rid of. I mistakenly brought Lily in thinking she was a peppy, but the inside of her house is so pretty, too. She's probably the one I'll have to boot, though. Sprinkle would be a good replacement...awesome house + good taste in clothing.

I haven't been able to get my shelf affixed in the greenhouse (to hold my portable monitor + Switch set-up) yet due to a wonky impact driver and no second person to hold the shelf in for me while I turn the screws manually, but I can take care of that today, and then I'll have a place to put my Switch when I want to do a workout.

My hand and foot keep going numb on me and I am really sore when I wake up right now...something's outta whack for sure. It might be what's making me a little extra tired atm. I've got ice on at the moment but hopefully the chiro will nudge things in the right direction tomorrow. When I take a nap, if I lie on my right side, I wake up feeling like I have a concussion with that weird head sensation...makes me hesitant to exercise. I feel strangely breakable. Though I still will. I'm tired of having stupid little things continually put it off; today's the day I ignore little glitches, whether with tools or with my body, and plough ahead. The shelf isn't permanently affixed but it is in a temporarily acceptable state...I could put my stuff on it even now. And I think I'll go ahead and do so this morning. Then I can finally get around to this KHF demo, lol. Took me way longer than planned! Though knowing what I know about it, now, I'm not as gung-ho to try it, any more. :/

Still feel like I should try to tackle AoC again. Every time I set it down, I forget how to play it. It's one of those I need to just buckle down and complete in one go (not one session, of course, but without interspersing other games or taking breaks from it). I'm going to have to redo earlier training sessions to get used to each character's moveset again. Oh well...I do love the map in this game, with all the collectibles and things to unlock and upgrade. The game was a gift, too. I feel extra obligated to complete a game that was given as a gift.

[Ronin19]

So I stopped playing on insanity difficulty for Mass Effect. I'm close to beating it on insanity, but I'm not having fun. I'm just gonna not get those difficulty achievements and enjoy myself.

I'm hoping to at least finish Mass Effect 1 before tomorrow as I'm getting The Good Life! Can't wait to play it.