Backlog 2022

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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Kikki
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I also haven't bought anything, yet! Though I was planning to wait until December 1 before making any purchases anyway...new month! I don't think I bought any games in November. I think Graveyard Keeper was my last purchase when it was on sale...I think that was in October. I now think I'll only be getting Tempest...perhaps won't bother with Ark and Active Life, even though they are each 70% off. I don't really want them that much, in terms of eagerness to play them. I might play them if I had them...or maybe they'd just moulder. Still thinking! I do like to have lots of choice in my backlog, since the last year or two it's become more necessary to give in and play by mood.

I tend to be very unlucky with RNG, I think. I mean, anything paid in particular. A game such as Genshin would tend to be quite cruel to me. I only played for about a month, but I never got anything good out of it. I got that ONE character who was guaranteed, some older-sister looking female character, a nurse or something? Her name might have been...Noelle, maybe? But I never got a single 5-star item or character, I don't think. I was only interested in Diluc anyway, but I bear a pretty big grudge against games that make me feel unlucky.

Life is hard enough without feeling like even your hobby doesn't support you. Even the gaming worlds within my own house don't care about me! Yeah...that's not a feeling I need to add to my life. I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate gacha games. Passionately. I liked the world and exploration decently (the exploration wasn't as fun as BotW or XCX, though) but I erased Genshin from my PS4 way back then because of the gacha, wiped my feet off on the mat as I exited the door, and never looked back. I wonder why when I'm wishing for another game of exploration...but then I remember it ran on gacha, and I squeeze my eyes shut to it again.

Date with Ryker was very cute. He immediately asked for another, and I was surprised...then gradually figured out that the following day was White Day, so he was making an appointment with me to give me a blushy cookie. (I got TWO cookies outta that boy. One when greeting him in the morning, then he gave me ANOTHER in the evening when we met up.)

RF5 has really made me wonder if there are any hidden triggers/requirements in dating. Like...why did Ryker accept Alice as a girlfriend the second she saw all his events, in my game? Did many other people also misunderstand at first and only THINK they were done all 3 necessary pre-dating events? It's very easy to do so! Or...is there something hidden, like: what kind of benefit do you get with Ryker out of having a high logging skill? Only dialogue, or is there more benefit in the code somewhere? What about how many hours you've spent with him in your party? What about how many gifts you've given, favourite or otherwise? This is a game made or overseen by Hashimoto, who works on games that DO have criteria like that, so I don't think it's impossible that there are some hidden factors we haven't been made aware of, that may influence your chances of getting your confession and/or proposals accepted.

But maybe I'll have a hideously bad time getting him to accept Alice's marriage proposal, so...we'll see. I'll keep Ryker in my party as much as I can tolerate (I find having party members irritating except when fighting a boss, then they're nice as fodder to draw the boss' attention. But they're SO in the way when you're trying to tame anything!)

*****heim is easier to get through than I thought...I didn't even need any new equipment. I only have the boss left, so I guess I'll finally get into some platinum forging, now...I like having an easy time with bosses, after all. I need to get my forging skill up to be able to make that legendary sickle anyway.
Last edited by Kikki on Nov 30, 2022 8:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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I've mostly been playing Pokemon Violet and having a great time. It's going to take a long time to exhaust this title I think. I wonder what they would even add to such a big game with DLC later? Even more area to explore and more old Pokemon maybe?

I have been checking the sales and I just haven't seen anything I felt like getting. I am going to be adding to my backlog on a manner of speaking though. I heard about this promotion for 12 free indies on Switch, so I will be checking that out. Granted to get them free, first you have to do an email sign up, then make sure to get each one in order on the proper day, but even if there ends up being one good game and 11 stinkers, I am not out anything, and can then unsubscribe.
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Kikki
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I finished *****heim, and I am now 1/3 of the way through the area past it, which I THINK is the second to last...after this I believe I only have one more story dungeon to complete and then I'm done the main story. I think. RF5 is so clearly based upon RF4's skeleton, just with a new skin, that it's easy to tell where I am in the story by name and nature of the current dungeon. THough I did look it up to make sure, lol. I'm nearly done the last real dungeon and just have one other left after it and I dunno if it really counts as a dungeon or not.

Either I really do have amazing RF5 luck, or they've patched this game. OR I was right about the event and requirements system being so confusing that most of the people who thought they just had bad luck were really being held up by hidden or confusing requirements, like having to be at or past a specific point in the story or etc. Because I saw a bunch of people saying even after they started dating, they could not, for love or money, get their bf/gf to agree to go on special dates with them. Most people I saw saying they managed to get ONE special date, but then couldn't get any more. I managed to trigger all three end-on-end, basically, with two festivals in between blocking the way for just one day each. I'll be seeing Ryker's third 'special date' tomorrow (in-game tomorrow.)

Now I'm gonna run off and see if I can win Autumn Year 1 festival with a level 5 Lordly Yam. Hope so. I accidentally butchered my strawberry before it could mutate into a Sultan Strawberry, which would have been a level higher AND a higher-ranked crop, I think. (I think strawberries rank slightly higher than yams, though I don't know for sure since I can't remember precisely how many days each one takes.)

Curious to see how difficult it will be to get Ryker to accept a marriage proposal in another heart level. I'll be done the story pretty soon, so no problem there. (After I get the other requirement I haven't met yet in place, of course. It should be quite easy.) I'm generally not super lucky with game RNG...I certainly wasn't with RF4!...so if this also happens super smoothly, I'm thinking they must have updated the game or something.

EDIT: There appears to be a glitch with the final battle if you have an event ongoing. I don't remember this happening with story events before, but Alice had her third special date with Ryker, and the next day immediately triggered his final love event, which is an event that takes 6 game days in a row, if I counted right. I had also triggered the gate for the final battle, and I got through the starting part...btu apparently you can't complete the whole place because if you have the event ongoing, the story event for that final dungeon won't happen. Or so it seems, by what happened to me and what I found after looking it up.

Darn. I wou ld have completed RF5 in the final hour of November 2022, if not for that. But I need my sleep!

NEXT DAY EDIT: Done! The story of RF5 is complete, and I must say...it was without a single grain of originality in it anywhere. No depth at all, and really just RF4, reskinned, story, characters, mechanics, all. I can overlook that for this game but I sure hope they do better with 6, or whatever this 'new Rune Factory that isn't a sequel' is. RF5's quality was also really low, imo...a downgrade from 4 in how well it runs.

Well, now I just have to get Alice married. Already went on 3 special dates with Ryker and saw his final love event, so I just hav eto get the request to build a double bed and I should be good to go. No problems at all. I'm wondering if they repaired something in updates.
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Kikki
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Last post is too long now!

Right after I completed the story, I got Alice hitched to Ryker, which was cute, and RF does successfully feel rather nice in the post-marriage parts. I am going to move on to another main game now, but I will probably return to RF5 in bits to complete the post-game content of kidlets and high level dungeons, and perhaps to complete all requests. Right now I'm not getting any new requests at all, but I think I have to hit fulfil the shipping a level 10 and shipping all veggies and a giant flower before I'll unlock more requests. Getting a level 10 crop in this game is so time-consuming. Thank goodness for the 'bulk fail' method of leveling up creation skills! I've already parked my crafting and forging stations in Blue Moon but I may just move all the rest there, now, too.

THat's the major temptation to replay RF5, too. I'd love to employ the 'bulk fail' exploit while I have free baths (up to level 20 or 25 with the Beginner crest, iirc) and shoot all my skills sky-high as early as possible and have a ridiculously powerful character just blazing through the dungeons. It'd be fun to see how early in Year 1 I could get the story completed.

With that, I'm done 23 games in 2022. I am downloading Tempest now, and it may be my next main game, if it's interesting. If not, then I guess I'll get back to Egglia, though perhaps I should restart it since I didn't place the egg worlds properly anyway and I'd prefer to have done that from the start. Besides, I'd like to get a screenshot of each egg I get my egg-lovin' hands on. I've gotten myself equipped to make some decorative eggs this winter, with wood, polymer clay and resin. Maybe one of the Egglia eggs can be copied...or inspiration.

Looks like 24 games this year is easily done. I may even hit 25, though I'm not aiming for it...I don't want it to feel like an obligation. I don't think I'm interested in any of my other backlog games. I did think Graveyard Keeper was really cool, but I don't feel like playing a drab brown game in a drab brown real life, such as it always tends to be in a snowless December. (We had snow for a week in mid-November, though just an inch that somehow managed to stick itself to the ground for around ten days.)

I can always go back into DQB2 and wrap up the post-game stuff there. Inspiration had not yet hit me for the Isle of Awakening's port town, though. Maybe that's the area I should use for a Positano look? Plus I still have to complete my ANB replay, and I was still working on a Kamil replay of SoS1, and was thinking of doing Trio again as well. The more digital farming and world-creating, the better.

For new games: I think I only have Crisis Core on my radar for this month.
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Mikodesu
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I did see today that Monster Hunter Rise/Sunbreak is coming to Playstation/XBOX soon, which is pretty neat. Is that a first for the series? Can't remember if that was mentioned. With the update to Sunbreak that lets you take NPC hunters on every quest, I think I'd be interested enough to pick it up. I have enough of an attachment to the games from playing Stories and what I've watched of Monster Hunter, I just don't think I'm good enough to go alone. And I would never play online as a « new farmer ». :lol: I can't stand forcing somebody (« Harvest Goddess » forbid a stranger) to teach me how to play a game. Or ruining hunts because I don't know what I'm doing and am getting in everybody's way. But it does look fun. Maybe on sale...


My only Genshin news is that my online settings must have been reset from that last online event, because I got a surprise invite last night. Scared the « Cow Poopoo » out of me. Haven't seen them since my setting got forcibly/randomly changed to auto accept waaay early on and I didn't know and kept getting people joining my game and freaking out and logging off until I figured out what was going on. (I can't even remember what I was calling Aether at the time, but I changed my name when I realized. Very sad.)

This last week before the update seems like a good time to go back to chest collection around the world.


Little more Harvestella tonight. I'm honestly kind of impressed by the number of sidequests that aren't entirely worthless. Telling decent stories or adding to the world building. I wouldn't go so far as to say the writing is good (MAYBE by video-game standards), there are too many little flaws that can't be thrown on a rushed translation, but, the ideas there are pretty impressive. It's already one of the better JRPGs I've ever played though, even without finishing it.
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Bluie
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Mikodesu wrote: Dec 01, 2022 9:40 pm I did see today that Monster Hunter Rise/Sunbreak is coming to Playstation/XBOX soon, which is pretty neat. Is that a first for the series? Can't remember if that was mentioned. With the update to Sunbreak that lets you take NPC hunters on every quest, I think I'd be interested enough to pick it up. I have enough of an attachment to the games from playing Stories and what I've watched of Monster Hunter, I just don't think I'm good enough to go alone. And I would never play online as a « new farmer ». :lol: I can't stand forcing somebody (« Harvest Goddess » forbid a stranger) to teach me how to play a game. Or ruining hunts because I don't know what I'm doing and am getting in everybody's way. But it does look fun. Maybe on sale...
As someone who played 90% of base Rise and hasn't hardly touched Sunbreak (yet), the path to Sunbreak is long, but Rise is by far the easiest game in the series. And I know, this might sound pretentious coming from a 'vet' of the series, but they really went out of their way to make it easier for newcomers. One of the reasons old MH is known for being so difficult is that while the monsters have their full movement and freedom, the hunter itself was limited to whatever weapon they had equipped and their limited stamina bar. Having to learn monster's patterns and when to dodge/attack was what set the learning curve so high, but that's not the case any more Rise. You're basically spiderman now and have a clear advantage over monsters because they're now bumbling idiots while you zipzapzop around them.

That's not to say there still isn't challenging monsters, because there are, but the majority of base Rise is setting up your combo and rinse-repeat until ded. Also, don't be too turned off at no NPCs accompanying you in base Rise as you will always have your Dogs/Cats with you while hunting and they both fight with you and heal you depending on how you trained them. They're basically customizable party members. BIG ALSO, the game itself gives you FREE broken (as in powerful) armor to get newbies to Sunbreak asap, so base Rise is even more easy mode than usual with that.

------

Got really excited this morning to see Warframe's cross play had launched, only to be immediately disappointed that cross save is coming at a later date. I just want to play my Mirage Prime in HD, I'm so tired of being stuck on the Switch with this game. Back to FFXIV...
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Kikki
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There's a funny thing that game publishers say...particularly those that localize otome games. They proudly announce the new 'dark' or 'noir' story they'll be releasing, as if this was something novel.

I haven't catalogued them all, but a quick guess from what I've played is that 80-90% of all otoges are very, very dark stories. The first otome I ever played was Nameless, which on the surface seems like it'd be pretty light-hearted, as the plot is a girl who is obsessed with BJDs (ball-jointed dolls...the game focuses on those by the company Crobidoll, an actual BJD company in Korea.) and she's poured so much love and life into them that they just...become real one day, and suddenly she has a very peculiar little harem, all of whom think of themselves as 'her dolls'.

It sounds pretty funny, but it's actually quite dark, and heavily psychological.

My next game was Hakuoki, and there are some dark flames to baptize yourself in right there. (Though I had to laugh at reviews that were surprised that a story starring members of the Shinsengumi had so many more sad than happy endings. In fact, none of the endings could be called purely happy...I know. It's the Shinsengumi, folks...did you think it was going to end with a shower of puppies and lollipops??) Code: Realize has a lot of humor but the story is pretty heavy, and Collar X Malice is touted as 'noir' from the get-go, to name a few well-known otoges. Even the geuinely funny otoges tend to have some very dark threads. So I just roll my eyes, now, when a company proudly tells everyone how 'dark' their otoge is, like they've done something new and original. Bring me an otoge that is NOT dark, and then you'll be showing me something unusual! (Cupid Parasite had serious threads but overall I wouldn't call it dark, if anyone does actually want to hear of one that isn't!)

That said...even if TEMPEST is probably the darkest otoge I've ever tried out. It deals heavily in very ugly witchcraft and witchhunts (every bit as evil as the evil it hunts) and the prologue was amazing becuase they set me up. The prologue started out annoying me SO MUCH with what a gullible moron the clearly very intelligent heroine was. But then they turned right around and had her mock her own stupidity, and quality-wise, it was uphill from there. I love when otoges flirt with (or completely commit to) breaking the 4th wall. That's how Nameless really hooked me, in the end. To inflict actual consquences on the player themselves!!

But this is NOT a happy game. I've only played two routes, but it seems to me as though all four routes (that I know of, though I'm sure there'll be a fifth 'hidden' route that ties everything together, because that is standard in the otoge world.) are sad endings. REALLY sad. There's no happy love endings in this at all, from what I can tell so far.
Spoiler:
Love doesn't feature much at all, really. She does come to love the main male character in each route as she gets to know them, but it looks to me like it'll never be possible for any of them to actually be together, because they're just one thread in a much larger story. The best possible ending is simply for the heroine to survive to the end of that man's story and figure things out from there, and then move on again. The premise is that she can do a Fatal Rewind...every time she dies, she can turn time back to where she needs (within the last few years) to undo terrible wrongs in an attempt to finally exact revenge on the one she hates most, and maaaaaaaaaaybe even achieve some happiness, though that's clearly a side issue. IT's different, too, in taht you don't really get to choose who to go after. You can choose which of the first two goes first, but otherwise the story puts you on a direct path. YOu do guy A or B's route first, then you do the one you didn't chose, then you go with Guy C, then with Guy D...and then I suspect there'll be a 'True' path after that, though I'm not there yet, I just know how these games tend to work.
It's super interesting, but don't buy even if TEMPEST if you want a feel-good game, okay?

But the heroine is very strong (a little stupid at times, from not thinking things through enough, or being too impulsive, but she usually suffers consequences and actually makes note of her failings and learns from it) and the connecting bits of the story, that overarch the individual routes, is compelling. I really don't know where this story is going to end up.

I sure hope it has at least ONE ending where the heroine ends up happy.

EDIT: Uuuuugh, the third route is so, SO awful. How could the fourth route possibly be any worse? It can't, can it?
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I’ve been meaning to get back into playthroughs that I stopped earlier this year, namely HMToT, HM ANB and Tales of Vesperia.

It has been a better year for games than 2021 in my opinion, but that has mainly been due to the new announcements than any particular game released. People seem to be upset at the amount of farming games announced but I honestly don’t get what the big deal is, last decade we got a whole heap of 2D platformers from Nintendo and the decade before first person shooters were everywhere, sometimes a genre just gets more games at a certain time and a lot of farming games (not all thankfully) nowadays are trying to gain Stardew Valley’s audience, such as Dreamlight Valley.

Congrats Kikki on finishing RF5 (well up to the point you wanted to for now anyway). 5 months after finishing the game and not touching it since, I do agree that RF5 really wanted to recreate RF4 but they honestly just made an inferior version of it but in 3D. I know that it plays better on PC but when the game without the glitches is just a worse version of RF4, there is no real reason for me to come back to it over RF4 or Trio of Towns.

I did discover something interesting however,
Spoiler:
I recently watched a video on Beatrice’s voice lines in RF5 and a large amount of them appear to go unused! IDK why. When I saw the 3DS RF4 voice clips from the same channel I had found almost all of them were either included in game or I could see the purpose of them for example, Clorica having shop dialog despite her not working a shop is probably a dialog slot the devs needed to fill for every character. Maybe glitches in the game extended to the voice clips being used as well? I remember a lot of the Bachelors and bachelorettes had jealousy dialog when I walked past them with Reinhard (whom my character married) in my party after a date despite my character never dating any of them.
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Kikki
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Somerandom wrote: Dec 02, 2022 4:26 pmCongrats Kikki on finishing RF5 (well up to the point you wanted to for now anyway).
Thank you! :) I'm glad I finished it, though I agree it was overall a bit substandard as a new RF game in 2022, but I'm putting that aside as I think they took the easy way with this comeback game...bring new fans in and let old fans know that they understand the formula and have the true IP in their hands. Seeing the credits roll twice is enough for me to be comfortable crossing it off my list, though I'm pretty sure I'll go back and wrap up a few more tasks, and it's quite possible I'll go for a replay now that I know how to shoot through the story really quickly, since I enjoy seeing how quickly I can accomplish things. (Not like a speedrunner, but I do like testing my efficiency.)

Since I deleted my Twitter account (things are too insane there, now, though it was a great game-news-gathering spot) I've got to get my PC and Switch hooked up to easily transfer all my album contents, should I want to post any of my screenshots in the future. I also want to be able to see images of the Egglia eggs whenever I want to refer to them, if I find one I think I can recreate.

Tempest turns out to have some good unlockable stuff. Like...bits that aren't horribly depressing. Not quite done, not sure I'll be done tomorrow, but it's definite that I can say I've done 24 games in 2022, now, at least. On to Egglia soon, most likely.
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Mikodesu
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Bluie wrote: Dec 02, 2022 4:02 am
Mikodesu wrote: Dec 01, 2022 9:40 pm I did see today that Monster Hunter Rise/Sunbreak is coming to Playstation/XBOX soon, which is pretty neat...

Snip
As someone who played 90% of base Rise and hasn't hardly touched Sunbreak (yet), the path to Sunbreak is long, but Rise is by far the easiest game in the series...

Snip
Yeeeah, Rise being relatively easy seems to be the general consensus. Aside from Arlo, every content creator, etc I've seen/talked to about the game has been a veteran. Probably I have the same problem with Monster Hunter that I do with Souls games...a long series with a bit of a reputation. Afaik, later Sunbreak bosses have started hitting Frontier levels of damage, but... I would PROBABLY be capable of getting through story content on an easier game. Especially with NPCs to drag along. I kinda look at NPC hunters like Elden Ring summons, since they seem more able to draw aggro, which in both games is a huge help. :lol: I dunno if I haven't been paying enough attention, but Palicos/Palamutes don't seem to do that as well.

Either way it's still on my wishlist... Capcom is really killing it these days. I dunno if starting with the speediest game in the series is a smart way to get into it or not, but if it gets me started it works, I guess?
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Mikodesu wrote: Dec 02, 2022 9:53 pmSnipy~ snip
The things with Palicos and Palamutes is they can be customized with skills to draw aggro if that's what you want/need. I'm more of wanting extra healing and materials, so I instead gear them towards that instead. Still, I've had plenty of times where they've drawn attention away from me, but it is all situational. So yeah, the NPCs are probably better, but the cats and dogs are there for you in the meantime lol.

The only other game I'd recommend for beginners is Monster Hunter Generations as it has the 'Prowler' mode where you play as a Palico and it's gameplay is probably most similar to the QoL improvements in Rise. I made it all l the way to G Rank in that game as a Prowler and it is hilarious taking down gigantic monsters as a tiny kitty lmao. Prowlers are skill based so you can fully customize them to have all the things Hunters need but on cool down instead consumable items. Prowler mode is known as 'easy mode' in the fandom due to their utility and general tomfoolery you can destroy monsters with (ie: you can die 9 times to a monster compared to the hunter's 3 before game over). The game goes on sale for peanuts often and is still active on Switch with multiplayer. Its doesn't look as pretty as Rise, but it still plays just fine.

--------

Welp, despite saying in an earlier post that I wanted to start something new I will not be doing that. I've instead decided to just wait until 2023 before diving into anything new. I've finished 20 games this year overall (and it'll be 21 if I ever get around to finishing Splatoon 3's story mode) and I'd say that's enough lol. I don't want to feel pressured to finish another game during this holiday season and while I don't have a new release until January 20th (Fire Emblem Engage) I'd rather just work on pre existing grinds I've been avoiding for new releases. So, basically I'm going to be working on my Genshin and FFXIV self set goals until further notice.

With Genshin it's all trying to get 100% exploration in all areas which basically includes finding every treasure chest, puzzle, and special collectables on the map. I finished Mondstadt and Inazuma this year during my downtimes, so Liyue is next as you can't 100% Sumeru yet (it's still being released). The next major update comes out on the 7th and I happen to have that day off. I'm really hoping I pull The Wanderer as I would love to have him on my exploration team (his floating skill will be absolutely cracked for it).

With FFXIV I'm still working on getting all the music scrolls and I've been slowly chipping away at Eureka. I've also started my grind for the Gwiber mounts proper and I have 2/7 now. With the scrolls I have 6 left under the bicolored gemstone grind and I've decided to get one per play session so I don't go insane over the tedium (scroll = 350 gemstones and you get 14 for a perfect FATE, so I have to do twenty five perfect fights to get one). I'm more in the mood for Gwiber farming than I am Eureka at the moment, but I am very salty over last night where I fought the Ruby Weapon 25 times with a party of randos and everyone got a Gwiber except me (I kept rolling a 20/99) and we disbanded when it became automatic the next one would be mine. « Cow Poopoo » is infuriating, but also just part of the MMO experience when all your friends are busy with other games. At least I got two others so I guess I can't complain too much. I have a friend who had to fight Suzaku 99 times (bosses drop tokens you can trade each time you kill them and 99 will get you the mount) because she could not get the mount to drop or she'd roll absolute « Cow Poopoo » each time it did. Really hope that's not me with the Ruby Weapon but I'm a quarter way there! Hahahaha *cries*
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Kikki wrote: Dec 02, 2022 11:04 am There's a funny thing that game publishers say...particularly those that localize otome games. They proudly announce the new 'dark' or 'noir' story they'll be releasing, as if this was something novel.
Your description made me cave on even if TEMPEST. ;_; I'm usually pretty into dark games, though I find that my idea of dark and a lot of other folks idea of dark do not match. Which is fine! But I have a hard time parsing reviews/discussions for the type of content I'm looking for. Tempest sounds genuinely dark and very interesting. I've actually been passing over every bit of discussion about it because I spent a lot of money on Voltage games in 2015-ish and never ever enjoyed them. But that was, like, eight years ago and this one sounds a lot different.

I really shouldn't have bought it! I keep telling myself to play Collar x Malice before I pick up another otome game, but Tempest is a lot shorter than most, and I'll probably actually like it. I'm dying for a new narrative game after finishing Chronicles of Tal'dun, but I don't think I'll start until I beat at least one other game. Happily, the next game I'm buying is Theatrhythm in mid-February, so I'm hoping to clear a couple big and small games from my backlog in the lull.

I'm probably an hour or two from beating Pokemon Scarlet. I'll wait to finish before I add to the other thread, but some general thoughts on the end:
Spoiler:
I'm super not into the fourth storyline. I've been building up the area in my head the whole game. I wasn't sure it was included with the base stuff, I thought it might be expansion content. But, like... it feels a lot less explorable compared to the rest of the game, which is really disappointing. Plus it feels SUPER SLOW without your buddy, and a little shoehorned/forced, when everything else has been open and voluntary. Part of this might be that I'm playing without my partner, so it's a big 3D area that's making me panic, and there's nothing interesting to distract me. I've only done two locks, so I'm hoping to see the interesting 'mons past here. Having said that, it isn't wrecking the game or anything, because it's probably only two hours long and I loved everything that came before. I'm just kinda bummed it's not more exciting.
Still playing Moonlighter as a secondary game. It's more fun now that I've figured out the weapons! Got several of the 2nd dungeon upgrades this morning. I'll probably shoot for finishing my armor upgrades tomorrow, and maybe snagging a weapon and venturing into the other two floors of the dungeon. I'm also playing Vertigo with my partner, whose schedule is keeping us from finishing, argh. But once I beat Pokemon, I can pick P5R back up, and probably resume Moonlighter for short sessions, which will open a spot for Tempest. Hoping to finish Pokemon, P5R, and Moonlighter this month, but that might be kinda iffy, even with a week off.
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Kikki
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simside wrote: Dec 03, 2022 8:31 pmYour description made me cave on even if TEMPEST. ;_; I'm usually pretty into dark games, though I find that my idea of dark and a lot of other folks idea of dark do not match. Which is fine! But I have a hard time parsing reviews/discussions for the type of content I'm looking for. Tempest sounds genuinely dark and very interesting. I've actually been passing over every bit of discussion about it because I spent a lot of money on Voltage games in 2015-ish and never ever enjoyed them. But that was, like, eight years ago and this one sounds a lot different.

I really shouldn't have bought it! I keep telling myself to play Collar x Malice before I pick up another otome game, but Tempest is a lot shorter than most, and I'll probably actually like it.
Sorry about that! I was really surprised that something by Voltage was displaying such sharp wit, because I've looked into their games before and they have all looked like cheap trash. I kept looking at TEMPEST and it just seemed different from the others. Voltage doesn't grind my gears the way certain other tacky otoge companies do, but not so much better that I wanted any of their other games. The art is really nice, too.

The story makes you think about things like...just how low can a person go before there's nothing left to redeem? That game made me morally uncomfortable, lol. I find that dark. I'm not sure if you (or anyone else) will, but I really like how unique a few things they do were. For example, the way you can actually squeeze a little happiness out of each guy's route, if you do all the hard work first. My heart felt kind of leaden during the 3rd route. I find it hard to stand up to feeling like the bad guy, even second-hand. I've just never been able to believe that 'the ends justify the means', but the heroine has got to live with that.

Collar X Malice is a good game :) In a way, some might find it darker than TEMPEST, and I think the only way that is true is that TEMPEST is obviously fantasy, while C X M is supposed to be more realistic, and that arguably makes it feel darker. But TEMPEST felt quite real to me in the way they represented the painfully sludgy depths that humans can go to. Witch trials were a real thing, after all. Submitting people to imprisonment and torture on a mere accusation, which could have come from petty malice...that was real.

Anything that reminds me that humans are disgusting feels very dark, to me. I guess I hope you find it dark? Lol. I didn't want to feel quite that much darkness, myself, but I did think it was a very interesting story. I feel like the conclusion doesn't live up to the set-up, but it was never particularly predictable, and any time I thought I recognized a cliche or trope, the game laughed at me. This game was clearly written by an experienced otoge fan who is already well aware of all the tropes, and has fun making you THINK they're going to use them. I do wish the story had more of the edgy wit and laughing-at-expectations that the beginning had, though...I feel like they added other writers to the mix for the third and fourth routes.
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Kikki
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I don't really like doing next-day edits, as my posts tend to be too long with just ONE day of content in them. :? Sundays are always quiet on Fogu, though. (I don't know why...maybe most people have Sundays off and do other stuff?) So if I make a post on Saturday, I'd generally either have to edit anything on Sunday into it, or

I find myself resisting this niggling little urge to slip back into my pocket dimension, into my alternate backyard: ACNH. I don't exactly know why I'm resisting it. I seem to be telling myself that I'm not supposed to play ACNH, and most of the time, I don't WANT to play it, but if I DO, then...why shouldn't I just go ahead and do so, I wonder?

Maybe because a game like ACNH is an eternal time pit, and I could use that time on actually completing something on my backlog? But does that even matter? I dunno why I'm hung up on this. If I want to go in, I should just go ahead and do so. I'd probably get bored within half an hour and not want to look at it again for months anyway.

I do still like knowing I have a digital backyard to slip into whenever I want.

BTW...This part is more important. This year again I've send Kirie a message to find out if she'll be doing our annual GotY/gaming-year-in-review thread, or if I or someone else should post it up like we did in 2021. (Using Kirie's previous years' threads as a template.) I'll wait until December 30 before starting on it, to give time for Kirie to possibly happen by in case she has any inkling to do it herself, though I don't know how much she's on Fogu this past couple of years.

If Kirie doesn't reply, or says that she won't be doing it, then...if anyone else has a hankering to do it, let me know. (I really don't need to be the one who posts it, though it's not difficult since I prefer to maintain Kirie's existing format anyway, so I don't mind or anything.) New questions can be added to it, too, if there are any...I didn't want to add a bunch but I did add one extra last time.
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Mikodesu
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Now (or in the next few weeks, anyway) would not be a bad time to pop back into Genshin for recently lapsed players. Apparently Hoyo (gonna try getting used to calling it that) got some award from Playstation, and we're getting primos for that. And this coming week is Game Awards, and assuming Jenshin Impact picks up Best Mobile Game again... that would be more primos. :lol:

I did not end up doing the exploring I planned to this week, talked myself out of it because I'm very close to unlocking the treasure tracker, should be done next week. And I think I'd rather do my big exploration sweep once, with a treasure tracker in hand.

I DID make my first attempt at Floor 11 of the Abyss today, and...I did okay? Full clear on the first two chambers, got all the way to the Dendro Cube boss and realized I forgot to put my dendro team on THAT side and quit. Not worth the effort of having to play aaall the way through the floor again just to move on to a boss rush. :lol: Though I do want to EVENTUALLY try the boss rush. At least once. I doubt I'll get more than 3 stars for the floor, but I will do it. Finally.


Not really much I can say about Harvestella without spoilers. Story is still varied and interesting, I still have not broken the economy, though I do have a more consistent way to make money now. Should get to the end of the season today, which is exciting. Both for the Quiet, and a new season. :D New STUFF.

I am trying to level up as many of my 'jobs' as possible, and I'm not totally sure about the balancing. Some are inherently weaker, but you can balance that out by bringing team members who buff your current skills. Or who use skills YOU can buff. I dunno if there's enough variety here to theory-craft for, but it's actually pretty close.
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