Backlog 2023

[Kikki]

I wish more people here were playing or had played Kynseed. I started it up today and played 47 minutes, according to my data.

It's really cool, but the thing is...I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what my goal is, and that leaves me aimless, and I can't stand playing aimlessly. That's why I stopped...I played through two days and then couldn't get myself to continue because I had no aim.

Even with the random starter quests being thrown at me, I don't know what the deal is. Perhaps that IS the deal...you have to find your own purpose...but I don't like that. I want to be told I'm saving grandpa's farm or making money for grandma's medicine. At the start of the game you go through...I think it was 4 doors. Each one gives you a stat bonus. (For example, you can choose a 'family' doorway that grants you +2 virility. VIRILITY? Excuse me, I'm a girl character. Wouldn't fertility have been the gender-neutral option? 'Fertile' applies to both men and women. Virile is as inappropriate as muliebral would have been, since both are gender-specific and the character's gender is by choice.) You can choose to go through a 'love' doorway later on that grants +2 charm. You can choose at least two doorways that increase your skills as a merchant, etc. Basically, go through whatever doorway will help you most with what you think you'll want to concentrate on in the game...getting married and having a family, getting rich, becoming famous, etc.

That was neat, but since I don't know how the game plays, I'm not sure which I should have chosen. I chose fate and love and so on, but I maybe shoulda chosen the family stats.

They handled tutorials in an interesting way. You find diaries/pages littered across the landscapes, so you have to explore before you'll even encounter any tutorials. There's also evidence of magical things lying around mysteriously that there seems to be no way to do anything with, yet, but I assume you'll eventually know what to do with them.

But for now...I don't know what to do. I could fill a few fetch quests for villagers, but I think all that'll do is raise the FP of the villager in question and I don't know why I should care about those specific villagers, at this point. I do my daily tasks...right now just picking a dandelion and feeding the pig (which you can ride, for some reason.) but that only takes a few seconds. I'm currently supposed to buy a tin bucket, and I did make it to town...but I've no idea where to get the bucket, though I introduced myself to about half a dozen people there. Maybe I'm in the wrong town. I don't know yet where to find my quest log, though I assume there is one in there somewhere.

Anyway, it's really cool, but I'm not the type who enjoys figuring things out by just bumbling along until I gradually get used to all the mechanics. Tutorials do exist, piece by piece, but I don't know what I should be focusing on. I assume for the first while it should be exploring, to complete the maps.

The game is really interesting...it feels like you're playing you way through a folksy and possibly somewhat eldritch fairytale. I like the maps a lot, and the stones you find that get the different pieces of each region permanently logged on your map. I'll have to Google some kind of starter guide for the game to give me a focus.

EDIT: Important note. It claims to be at 1.0, but the game is NOT actually complete. They have a Q1 2023 update coming to add the tavern, and another one after that as well, to add more towns (I think they're towns) and house customization, NPC stories, etc. December 6th really did not see the complete game come out, though it's already big and detailed (Though I hear the NPCs are rather shallow in their dialogue and etc, so hopefully the NPC stories improves that.) I don't approve. If it's full release, it's FULL RELEASE. There should be no more additions of core content beyond 1.0. Patches, yes. Additional post-game content, sure. But some of this stuff...no.

[Bluie]

I wish more people here were playing or had played Kynseed. I started it up today and played 47 minutes, according to my data.

I actually plan on playing it when/if it gets released on consoles. I have another friend who plays it pretty often and I like the way it looks, so I'll at least try it. Probably won't come to consoles until they actually finish it for reals though.


Did the New Years event in FFXIV and got the nice new samurai outfit from it. I know EVERY samurai player is gonna be wearing it now until it's popularity dies down a bit. I'm tempted to make it into a healing glam as I actually enjoy bamboozling people by making glams that look nothing like their class. But for now, into the armoire it goes for later. I did two achievement FATEs before switching over to Genshin where I spent the majority of my time building Tighnari. It's funny that I've gone from only liking Tighnari's design and personality (but not enough to pull for him) to integrating him into a team I use very often. I guess losing 50/50 to him twice and me needing more Dendro will do that. I also just really like his English VA's performance, it's this funny mix of being a total nerd while also being 100% done with people. One of his Teapot lines had me almost cry laughing as I told him to (lovingly) « I love You ». It may sound weird, but it's honestly really nice to have characters I like outside of their outfits in this game. From 1.0 to now, I really only liked maybe 4 characters for who they were while the rest of them were very 'oh, they look nice' or 'I should pull for them to get better damage'. With Sumeru I have enjoyed almost every character so far and I really think they got a new writer or something because they're overall just... better?

Not sure when I'm going to get started on my backlog. Fire Emblem Engage will be here before I know it and I'm currently very invested in writing a fanfic that maaaaaybe has two chapters left, but my writing speed varies on mood. I'll probably play finding Paradise first as it's the shortest game in my list.

[Kikki]

I wish more people here were playing or had played Kynseed. I started it up today and played 47 minutes, according to my data.

I actually plan on playing it when/if it gets released on consoles. I have another friend who plays it pretty often and I like the way it looks, so I'll at least try it. Probably won't come to consoles until they actually finish it for reals though.

I was mainly hoping for more people here to be playing it so I could ask questions and get feedback on the many things I'm uncertain of, though more generally, it is nice to have more players just so you can actually chat about things to someone who has a clue what you're going on about.

Well, unless they decide to continue to add more due to player feedback, it looks like they'll be done in spring or summer of 2023. I think they're already working on the Switch port now, though...I think it's due out before summer. I hope they finish EVERYTHING they mean to add to the core game before then. Like I mentioned...I'm okay with them adding post-game content and true extras afterward, and it's nice to have refreshed content later for a game you're into, but with basic stuff like backstories for the NPCs? I'm unhappy that that's not being added until after 1.0.

~

And I was right about the feel of the game; the devs managed to convey it quite strongly, imo. The game is pretty and feels very fairytale, but dangerous-creepy. I think the rhyming automatically made it creepier for me. Will put everything else in a spoiler for those who want to go in blind and know nothing about the setting/game world.

Spoiler:

And being conveniently adopted out of the shoe you lived in with a million others (your mom was the Old Lady who lived in a shoe and you and your twin are two of the 'so many children she didn't know what to do', so she happily gives you up when your nice...I THINK he's genuinely fairly nice...uncle decides to take two of you away without so much as a question) was unsettling for me. Things never come without a price as high as or higher than what you receive! And I did know of the existence of Mr. Fairweather (a creepy rabbit man the colour of blood, with sprouts coming out of his staff or his clothes or possibly his body?) but I didn't know what a horrible cheat he is. The real me would DEFINITELY reject his deal (which will be forced upon 20 generations of your family since you and they will each only be able to live 50 years!) He'll also give you extremely good items...for the cost of years of your life.

Basically I'm pretty sure Mr. Fairweather is the devil. Whom I would never make a deal with, no matter what was on offer. The price is always more than the present. Makes me wonder if I can get ALL his favours in my first life and leave my descendants with all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff, lol. Suck it, Fairweather! Well, I dunno if that'll be possible, but we'll see. That can be one of my goals. Cheat Fairweather as much as possible of his ill-gotten gains.

The FIRST goal for me will simply be to get through the prologue. That's when the story really starts. Before that I want to see if I can find all the mapstones and give gifts at the shrine things. I'll do my daily tasks, gather as much as possible, fill whatever quests I can, and otherwise just aim to find mapstones, during the prologue. Maybe after the prologue I'll have a better idea of a long-term goal.

I've been reading up but it seems that the game is very light-handed with goal-giving. You pretty much have to make your own goals. I'm not clear on this yet, but there may be a storyline to finish via the Kynseed tree, but I read that it's possible to finish that in your first life, if you want to. I probably won't end up playing the game for very long if I have to create my own goals, because if you have to make your own goals, that means you have to imagine your own rewards, as well. Like if I become rich, or an incredible fisher or merchant or farmer...the game won't reflect that via events or dialogue. And I don't want to have to imagine my rewards, I want REAL ones. I want to be rewarded with more dialogue, events, customizations, etc.

[midnighttherabbit]

Goodness, you've been peeping in the Backlog thread but only joining now? You've been on Ushi forever Well, welcome to the thread, anyway!

You could try the Backlog Blitz method to help speed up your backlog progress. I personally found it a freeing method that took the pressure off and made it feel sort of rewarding to complete games. Do you already know it?

I personally can't play multiple games at once, or they all end up in an unfinished heap together. I could possibly have 2-3 games on my 'currently playing' category, IF each was very different from each other. Like if one game was stressful or difficult, having one that was exactly the opposite to play when the first one got me overwhelmed...that kind of thing is okay. But I cannot play multiple story-driven games at the same time...two JRPGs at once? Ha ha...no. Or four cute short indies at once? Also no. I can only juggle multiples if the games are notably different from each other and work well to complement each other...or if one is a 'forever' type of game with no end, like Animal Crossing or Farm Together. Those can always be interpersed with other games, ime.

Ty, yeah it's been around 10 years now! I sort of dip in and out of here nowadays when there's SoS news, but this place is a lot more chill than a lot of other video game spaces on the internet.

I haven't heard of that method, I don't think? I usually just make a list or a spreadsheet and tick them off - my main issue right now is less the method I use and trying to actually gather together everything I want to play. My games are scattered across so many platforms (and so many launchers on my laptop, I try to use Playnite to make things easier but I always forget to update my library there,) so it'll take a while.

And yeah, the same happens for me but I just can't help myself, I can generally play a game on each platform and be fine, but once I start playing two similar games on the same platform one is definitely getting abandoned.

I think I'll get some spare time on Wednesday, so maybe I'll make a list of everything then...

[Kikki]

I haven't heard of that method, I don't think?

Briefly, then...the reason I like the Backlog Blitz is because it took the weight of my backlog off me entirely. It works like this:

As an example, let's say that the end of 2022, you had 139 games on your backlog, across all platforms. Then it becomes January 1, 2023. EVERY SINGLE GAME ON YOUR BACKLOG IS CROSSED OFF. You now have 0 games. No backlog at all!

From that moment, every game you BUY is -1. Every game you COMPLETE is +1. (Or you can reverse them, depending on how you prefer to keep track...but purchases and completions must be opposites. I just happen to prefer to think of completions as positives and purchases as negatives rather than the reverse.) Games you bought in previous years but haven't yet completed...they count, if you happen to complete them in 2023.

Re-plays don't count either way. (Though you could change this if your goal is actually to do more replays. But that's not really a backlog goal so we won't go into alternative ways of accounting.)

So let's say in January you:

Finish Crisis Core (+1)
Finish Pokemon Scarlet (+1)
Buy P4G (-1)
Finish P4G (+1)

Your total for January would be +2. You finished 2 more games than you purchased.

I like that method because it stops ten, twenty, or even thirty years of backlog from feeling like a millstone tied to your back. That way each year can be fresh, and you're only accountable for your CURRENT habits, rather than your former ones. I personally really like that, and the year I did the Backlog Blitz formally, I finished 36 games, which is a record for me. It also made me second- and third-guess every purchase I made because I didn't want any extra minuses on my list. I also finished a lot of extra old games that were still hanging around, unfinished, because I wanted the extra pluses. The accounting felt like a game in itself.

Well, now ya know If your current way of doing things is already working for you, then no need for another.

~

EDIT: In my own gaming stuff...I tried to buckle down yesterday and raise my carpenter level in FFXIV. NO GOOD. My current job quest is to add materia to an iron lance. I managed to make an iron lance okay, though it was ANNOYING (I know why I hate land/hand stuff in FFXIV now...you have to constantly run around to find all the different ingredients for everything, and I don't know where anything is! Everything has to be googled, I have to travel all over the map to a hundred different vendors, then change my job multiple times to gather the items that can't be purchased. It's a HUGE TEDIOUS MESS.) but then...

I couldn't meld a material to it. I have 5 materia. 2 of them are level III. 3 of them are level II. I need a level I materia, because an iron lance is only at level 20 and level II materia must be bound to level 30 items...so only level 1 is usable for this quest. YOU CAN'T BUY MATERIA. Not by any in-game vendors! Only via the market board, which I can't access while in the free trial. And you can drag them out of 100% spiritbound items, but NONE of my items are past 1%, even though I've used them TONS. Plus I'd have to equip a starter-level something to drive that up to 100% to hope to be able to pull a level 1 materia out of it, and the percentage never goes over 1%. So that seems hopeless, too. IT's just so frustrating. I really hate side jobs in FFXIV. Carpenter at least is proving, well...impossible. I can't complete this job quest.

GROWL

This has settled it for me, for now. I'm going to take FFXIV back off my plate entirely for the foreseeable future. I'll wait until they get solo mechanics fully in place. They probably won't even take more than a few months to have every regular dungeon soloable, but Trials may be a LONG way off, and trials come in thick in the post ARR content. Maining it, I'd run into one every day. So, yeah. I do want to play it but it's only reasonable for me to do so if they get solo options in place for everything required for story progression.

EDIT 2: OMG LOOK YOU GUYS, WE HAVE STRIKETHROUGH NOW! This'll be fantastic for lists :D

[FarmingForDaysMan]

Hiiiiii, I was in and out of the 2022 backlog discussion (I’ve invested most of my time on Ushi into a RP), but I’m back for this year’s backlog and hopefully I’ll stick around all year

Okay, so my backlog is generally the same as last year’s but it has, well…expanded. Anyways, here we go:

2023 Switch Backlog:
—Animal Crossing: New Horizons
—Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy (Deluxe Edition)
—Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
—Nintendo Switch Sports
—Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
—Pokémon Shining Pearl
—Pokémon Sword
—Pokémon Violet
—Rune Factory 4 Special
—Rune Factory 5
—Stardew Valley
—Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town
—Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town
—Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
—The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

2023 3DS Backlog:
—Harvest Moon DS
—Hometown Story (I thought I had deleted my data, but I didn’t! yay :D)
—Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
—Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
—Story of Seasons
—Tomodachi Life

Soooooo yeah, my backlog is looking pretty full. Pokémon Shining Pearl is the only game that I haven’t started yet (my brother bought me the game for Christmas); I’ve already beaten some of the games that I listed in my backlog (HMDS, SDV, PLVSPWAA, PWAA, Tomodachi Life, technically?), but I put them on my list because I had started playing through them again and intend to finish the current file.

I hope we all have a great year! Happy gaming, my friends :D

[Mikodesu]

It has been...a night.

To start with the simple stuff, I've been playing Genshin as usual. I'm in a habit now of wishing on every banner... it's more fun, and I make sure I have enough...whatever the cheap currency is to buy wishes every month. And because I didn't have Raiden or Ayato, and archons are useful to have and he's fun to play, I'd been wishing back and forth a bit on each banner, and managed to pull Ayato a bit early on a 50/50.

I seem to have better luck wishing when I do ZERO prep work. If I have no boss mats, no talent mats, whatever, I tend to get the character. Sort of like an in-game desire sensor.

For whatever reason the 'tall male' animations look a bit...stilted? on Ayato, but he's fun to play. And with dendro out he's a lot more useful. Helps that I already had a skyward blade ready, and that's the best you can do with him without pulling on a weapon banner, which I'd still hate to do.


Aaand Harvestella... I finished the main story tonight. Could kind of tell that I was getting to the end and while I was doing prep work for it, intending to get to it tomorrow I just got the itch to try and beat the final boss and see the end, with the thought that so what if I wipe, I can try again later, and I'm very very grateful I didn't wipe because in JRPG style it is a LONG sequence.

Gotta sit with the ending for a bit to decide where I'd put it amongst the JRPGs I've played. Without spoilers, I can say that the game managed to answer pretty much all of my questions. Whether or not I'm satisfied with the answers is another issue, but it HAD them. Way more than most games do. WAY more than Rune Factory. Without question this has to be at the tippy top quality wise of any JRPG made by a team not making games in the early, single digit Final Fantasy days. It's very, very good.

Still not 100% sure when post game will kick in, but I've only just booted up my clear data file and ran around a little bit before quitting out, but... yeah.

SUPER, OMEGA SPOILERS behind the tag.

Spoiler:

Final boss sucked. The first segment in the dungeon was good, had a big... 'wrap up' feel, but the big 'beast' creature thing was awful. Very reminiscent of another game I played not all that long ago that I won't spoil for anyone still intending on playing that one...

The fact that you spend half the fight chasing it down was MISERABLE, but aside from that it was pretty fair. (I did yell at my monitor when I downed it, though...) Having the third section where you're constantly healed and just getting lore spammed at you took the sting out of it.

The ending had that JRPG special... "power of friendship" feel to it, but somehow, for reasons I can't explain just yet, it felt earned. I wish I knew why, I'd have to stew on it for a bit to figure out. It might just be from all of the side stories. Some of them felt like you were watching something you shouldn't have been, but some felt like you were genuinely bonding with and helping the character. Like your being there made some sort of difference.

Which, as good as some JRPGs can be at building character relationships, I don't think many of them nail it to that degree. I've only SEEN Persona played, but I would rank it up there in terms of party relationships. Rune Factory comes close, though you don't have as much of a cohesive party feel there. It's still 'you vs world'.

I'm not the biggest fan of the classic JRPG narrative, I was kind of hoping they'd subvert it, and not do a 'killing « Harvest Goddess »' ending, and toward the end I was really starting to think they might, but. Oh well. It was pretty satisfying, all told. Really liked the ending sequence, everybody 'writing' their letters to you. Pretty likeable cast, all told. I liked some characters more than others, but it's rare I don't have a character I actively dislike.

Now to go stew some more, I guess.

Pretty happy I did things the way I did. (It works for me, I'll say.) I've got a bunch of farm stuff left to do, but also quite a few quests to clean up. MOST of the character quests have a few scenes left on them, and I did like...two quests in the final big town, so there's a whole bunch of those to go around and pick up, on top of the Quiet 'activity'.

Plus there are a couple weird, unexplained side quests to figure out? There's an NPC in one of the areas that you can just find, who gives you a one sentence, 'do this for me', without a quest marker or a full explanation. I'll Google that at some point, probably.

Pretty satisfying way to start off the new year, at least. Just shy of 70 hours to complete the main story, and there's a whole bunch left to do. « Harvest Goddess » I hope this team gets another game. Come on Squeenix, don't « Snuggly Bunny » this up. These are GOOD developers, they deserve to make another game. Learning all they have, it could very well be a masterpiece.

Edit: Oh. It may be time to do some fanart. If I have the energy. None of the devs will see it, but I feel like fanart is a tiny 'thank you'. Best I can do, anyway.

[Kikki]

I have to sit around for a while to even remember what I'm doing, backlog-wise. First of all, then, combining my own watchlist of upcoming games with games mentioned by those in the GotY thread and in this thread, I've managed to compile a semi-respectable list of games to keep an eye out for in 2023.

-P4G (January 19th)
-Trails to Azure (March 14)
-LoZ: TotK (May 12, 2023)
-Trails into Reverie (July 7th)
-Jack Jeanne (2023)
-Pikmin 4 (2023)
-FFVIIR Pt II Rebirth (winter 2023, so in theory by Mar 31 2024, but Squeenix is famous for big delays, especially with FF, so...)

Basically a small handful of games for the first half of the year, and three more for undefined '2023', making them more likely to be later in the year than earlier.

Anyway, I wasn't actually playing anything any more...I think that's why I keep blanking when I go to pick up a controller. I've put FFXIV aside until they get everything programmed to be soloable. Oh, Kynseed. Right! Lol...that's what I was doing. That was only yesterday, jeepers, how do I need to remind myself so much?

I do somewhat want to continue it. I was only 2 days in, so I'd restart now that I have an idea of how to deal with the prologue, at least. (I think after the prologue there's probably no point in having much of a plan.) I'm just not sure because it's not really 100% complete, and I don't like that. The NPC stories are the part I really resent not being in at supposed 'full release'. The rest could be considered post-game content, but anything that fleshes out the NPCs is something I'd have wanted in on one of the earliest possible updates, not a post full-release update.

So I don't know if I want to get into Kynseed, yet. It's interesting, though. I already have a story in my head for my starter protag, who out of guilt will buy as many advantages for her descendents as she can, using years of her own life, to make up for a mistake that was forced on her. (I think at that point it stops qualifying as a mistake but rather a victimization.) I can't decide if she'd bother to have a family of her own or if I should just burn up the first life with as many purchases as possible and otherwise just find mapstones and make money. I also just want to snub Mr. F as much as possible.

I also don't know yet if NPCs grow old and die with the generations. If they do, you'd have to have endless NPCs to replace original ones with every generation, so...curious about how they're working that. Perhaps each new generation is actually identical to the last, but perhaps with new names, or reskinned? Or maybe only the protag and their family passes new generations and you have the same NPCs all along? But that'd make no sense, if you could marry the same NPC as your great grandmother. (GEH!)

Really curious about that part, anyway, because I doubt they've created endless NPCs with actual unique personalities and I can't figure out what would be a good way to handle changing generations. Every way *I* think of making it work has major drawbacks.

So I guess my current backlog task is figuring out if I'm continuing Kynseed now, or waiting for true full completion. If I'm going to wait, then...I have nothing I want to play, atm. I could play Egglia, but I just don't enjoy it all that much, it feels like an obligation rather than that I'm doing it for fun. Oh...I guess I could finally get back to Graveyard Keeper? Looking at my small list of games I'm still considering completing, it's one of only 4 I'm actually interested in playing. (Seriously considering abandoning the others since I can't seem to work up any interest in playing them.) It probably sounds ridiculous but the reason I don't want to get back to it is because the colours are so drab. All browns and greys and dull greens.

My other options are: Radiant Historia, Torchlight III...and maybe Staxel or Garden Paws, but I kinda don't think so on those last two, since one has an animal protag and the other is so, so ugly in the block graphics.

[Bluie]

Guuuhh. I was up until almost 3 am finishing up the Rana questline in Genshin. I don't understand how people binged the entire thing when Sumeru first dropped. I slowly worked at it, deciding to finish up the last-ish quest last night, only to find out there's ANOTHER sequence I had to do which involved playing Traveler solo and fighting a boss/waves of enemies. It was overall fine, but once it finally ended I felt drained lol. It does help that the Aranara are adorable little Korok ripoffs that I actually enjoyed questing with opposed to the usual sameface NPCs everywhere else. The story also has a surprisingly (optional) dark conclusion where I ended up deciding to be merciful instead of out right killing the perp. It probably changes nothing, but when I found out who the perp was and who they work under, I was just like "welp, your life sucks and you're clearly remorseful, so gtfo and try to life better from now on". I can imagine a lot of players chose the kill option as a cathartic way to end and extremely long quest series, but I just couldn't. I hope there's some extra quest dialog down the line for my choice as there was some special dialog regarding quests I'd done in other regions that appeared during this questline specifically.

I'm probably going to hit more Genshin today and keep working on the World Quests I've been avoiding for honestly no reason. Wanderer's birthday mail was hilarious and I didn't even know he had a special dish! I gotta go gather some eels for him now...

[yzafre]

It seems almost definite that we'll get a Tears of the Kingdom Direct a month or two before the game's release. As for a 'full fat' Direct, February or March seems not unlikely, though Nintendo has slid off the rails quite a bit in terms of when they do 'real' Directs, now. We can go well over a year without them, so I wouldn't want to place any bets. BUT...the last full Direct was September 13th, so a mid-March Direct would give 6 months between them and I'm quite sure they have some things to announce, and waiting until the crush of the 'E3' period (even if E3 doesn't necessarily exist any more) seems a bit much. Then again, maybe they'll want to keep everyone focused on TotK and won't bother with a regular Direct until summer.

My hopes are mostly pinned on the fact that we've had a February direct every year since 2019. You're right, of course, that with Nintendo that is absolutely no kind of guarantee, but... hopes spring eternal, I guess. On the other hand, Tears of the Kingdom is releasing in a really strange time-slot, and you're probably right they'll want to do a direct for that, so... Hm.

Like I thought, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure was pretty short. It was also exactly my tastes, so that was nice. There's one game checked off this year.

I opened AC:NH back up again - I haven't played it seriously since 2020... I'm thinking maybe I'll flatten my island and rebuild it. Maybe see if I can't get the last few museum items I'm missing, too - I haven't played the winter season before, so it's likely they're in season right now, anyways. I think I might also play my current active BotW file. Let myself play it as much as I want this month, then forcefully shut it away. Don't want to get burned out before ToTK, after all.

I've got other games I could buy, I guess, but I don't want to spend all of my budget the first week of the month.

[Kikki]

My hopes are mostly pinned on the fact that we've had a February direct every year since 2019. You're right, of course, that with Nintendo that is absolutely no kind of guarantee, but... hopes spring eternal, I guess. On the other hand, Tears of the Kingdom is releasing in a really strange time-slot, and you're probably right they'll want to do a direct for that, so... Hm.

There's almost no chance they won't do a TotK Direct, I don't think...they do them for all of their big first party games, now. Unfortunately for their streak of February releases, Nintendo didn't have a February direct in 2020. They had an ACNH Direct in February and a Mini Direct in March, but no regular Direct at all. (There was no regular 'full-fat' Direct at all between September 2019 and February 2021. There were some Partner Showcases and Mini Directs, though, plus the ACNH Direct.)

But I don't think a Tears of the Kingdom Direct will impact whether there is or isn't a regular Direct if they have enough to put into one. The ACNH Direct was exactly a month before the game's release and I figure most game-specific Directs would be done about a similar time ahead...about one month. Though I'm just guessing! I don't find Nintendo to be consistent enough to be really sure based on past dates...though they are at least the best way to come up with ballpark estimates.

I think there's a pretty decent chance there'll be a February Direct and a TotK Direct in April.

~

I want to ruin Mr. F in Kynseed. I want to spoil all his plans and really frustrate him. Turns out though that the game is designed to not work right if you manage to claim all his trinkets in one lifetime...the next generation won't be populated properly, as far as I can tell, if you spend too many years of your life and fast-forward through too much of any one generation. Unless they patched that. Phooey, that was the most motivating idea in Kynseed...making Mr. F really angry by pooping on his plans as much as possible. Well, most news you can find on Kynseed is old, not based on the most current updates, so, perhaps I can still hope to knot his whiskers up a bit.

[Mikodesu]

Did another one of my...draw while Genshin cutscenes play nights and finished the main quest for this patch. Worked out, since most of it was talking as per usual, and I got a lot done.

The bit at the end... not likely at this point but just in case somebody hasn't gotten there yet,

Spoiler:

Picking a name for Wanderer is the weirdest thing. (I'm guessing by the rules/warning your name sticks if you pull him?) I dunno what possessed me to take it seriously (the limited renames bit probably?) but I go to my usual name website and it just so happens to be down, go to another one, a list of popular Japanese names is all I can find, so I'm scrolling through those and popping them into Jisho to translate, and I get to the name Koji...

1. orphan

2. person without friends

Guess what Wanderer is called now? Take that you little « Cow Poopoo ».

Oh! And the Lantern Rite update livestream is on Friday. Confirmed, now. I haven't been back to Liyue in a while, that'll be nice. Obviously Xiao will get his annual rerun... but the question is, will Shenhe? Been a year since she was introduced, and there have been no reruns. Two days to wait to find out. Doubt I'd roll on her, she's too much of a luxury unit, but I still love her hair?

[midnighttherabbit]

I haven't heard of that method, I don't think?

Briefly, then...the reason I like the Backlog Blitz is because it took the weight of my backlog off me entirely. It works like this:

Oh, that does actually sound pretty satisfying! I've been meaning to at least keep a log of everything I play / buy this year, so I'll probably use something similar to that method. Today I'm just going to try and go through my games and figure out which really count as part of my backlog and which I'm probably not going to ever really get around to...

-

I've been pretty busy this week so haven't actually played much of anything - I'm annoyingly close to finishing DA:I now, though. I'm done with the main story and two of the DLCs, and now only have the epilogue DLC left to play through. It's at the point where I'm getting a little tired of the game / universe and want to rush through and finish, but I know that locking myself into that final DLC will mean I can't go back and do unfinished quests later... So I guess I have a few hours of collectable finding and fetch quests ahead of me still -_-

[Bluie]

Snip

Spoiler:

Koji is a surprisingly cute name for him though?

I'm just glad you named him something sensible instead of some of the others I've seen in co-op. I've seen 'Buttmunch', 'Dumbass', 'Lilman', and more lol.

I personally went from not liking Scaramouche from 1.1 - 2.? to being interested in his overall concept. Being created by Ei only to be tossed away was intriguing to say the least. Come the current patches, I get immediate damage to my kokoro because I am a sucker for characters who give up on being pure evil and become frenemies with characters or just plain allies. He is a little « Cow Poopoo » still, be he's my little « Cow Poopoo » now lmao.

I named him Gaelach, the Gaelic word for moon as I thought it suited him.

Oooo, really looking forward to Lantern Rite again! I know who's going to be running due to reliable leakers. With Alhaitham and Yaoyao, I'll spoil it just in case:

Spoiler:

If they're reliable it's Xiao for the first half and then Yelan and Hu Tao

I feel like they're saving the Shenhe rerun for something else I've been made aware of via another leak that if it's real, she will no doubt be involved. IDK how you feel about leaks so I'll « I love You » on them. I personally like seeing what I'm getting into character wise before release, but I avoid all story leaks like the plague.

As for actual Genshin playing, I'm forcing myself through Enkanomiya's exploration and world quests and I hate it. Doing it for the achievements and sigils so I can never EVER come back here again. Music aside, this area sucks.

[cinnamon_yuki]

Tomorrow is the release of The Fernweh Saga Book 1. Very excited for it! Currently creating saves for my Wayhaven Chronicles Book 3 playthrough. It's so nice to play an IF without worrying too much about stats. Just plain old cozy IF.

Playing a bit of DDV and in process of befriending Ursula to unlock Eric. He's the last character to unlock now that I have unlocked Woody and Buzz. I also made headway with my Rune Factory 5 replay. I'm taking it slow but trying to unlock as much as I can along the way. I spent the majority of the last weekend downloading Cyberpunk 2077 appearance mods and I love, love creating my OCs on it with different poses. Can't wait to see the future of the CP2077 modding scene that's for sure!

I might consider getting Persona 3 Portable first and wait until April or May to get Fire Emblem Engage because so far, I don't mind waiting to play it unlike before, and as petty as it sounds, S-Support is a huge draw from previous FE games so the decision to get Engage on Day 1 or week of the release might hinge on that.

Anyway, I look forward to tomorrow and can't wait to delve into The Fernweh Saga!