Backlog 2023

Kikki · Post Posted: Jan 17, 2023 3:11 pm

Thanks for the suggestion BerryBea

I avoid games where I have to kill any humanoids, though. Monsters only for me, preferably, unless there's absolutely no visible violence...no blood splatters or etc. (Even without gore, the more human they look, the more I don't wanna!) Aggressive, ugly non-humanoid monsters that produce no gore and make no gross or pitiful death rattles or wails are the best enemies for me.

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I have a bunch of indies on Steam Deck but they're the type of thing that'd run on a calculator, so they really don't show what the Deck is capable of. On PS4, I got FFVIIR for free during one month's trial right before my (highly discounted, lol...I've become quite the bargain hunter in the last few years!) subscription gave out, and I managed to complete it in that time, and really liked it, too. I'd like to own it properly, though it's a shame I wouldn't have my save data, such as already exists on my PS4. I'd want a good sale, though, so I'll have to wait. Well, it's on my list for a higher-end game to try on Steam Deck. I'm fascinated by how blank and doll-like the protagonist is. I didn't get that impression from Cloud in the original (which I only played the first few hours of, only up until I completed the motorcycle race thing.) It doesn't look like PTSD, even. He doesn't look haunted or hurt or anxious, just empty. Well, but, Squeenix tends to go off the rails with their stories as they get toward the end of them. I often like the beginnings, and then get annoyed by the absurdity of the plot twists later on. Maybe everyone with the fancy eyes are all cat-eating zombie aliens who came to earth because they munched through their native supply of felines.

Wouldn't put it past Squeenix. Might help explain just how intensely that Sephiroth gave me the willies in the remake, too. (I don't know that I even met him in the original. Can't remember!) Oh well, I think I really liked it, though, compared to others who actually played through the original, particularly back when the game was new. I prefer the remake to the original, by a long shot, and that'd probably get me killed in certain circles, lol.

Anyway, it's pretty high-spec, certainly compared to, say, Kynseed, so it should give me a better idea of what it feels like to play something more technically demanding than the average indie.

PS4 is acting like a big dope. It insisted, all of a sudden as I had Netflix on, that my storage device was corrupted and needed repaired. No cords had come loose. I restarted it a few times and checked that no downloads were actively ongoing, since that can confuse the system, but I refused to believe anything was actually wrong and eventually went into the 'devices' area and found my greyed-out Seagate and made it do a check and repair there, and it worked quickly and perfectly and, indeed...not a problem with it, even though it was insisting that I had to reformat my drive. As if I was going to listen to that, stupid PS4!

Mikodesu · Post Posted: Jan 17, 2023 8:30 pm

Spent a couple hours running around after 3.4 dropped in Genshin and the new area is HUGE. It's kinda mind boggling at this point that the game still runs on phones. Is the map as big as BotW at this point? I can't even fit all of Sumeru on my monitor anymore, zoomed out as far as I can. I wanna know how far it takes to walk from one end of Sumeru to the far end of Mondstadt. Not willing to do it myself, though.

I am officially overflowing with characters, now. Got Layla and Candace last update and they're not max friendship and got YaoYao and a surprise Faruzan tonight, plus an early Alhaitham! He's pretty fun, but there's something weird about his dash/charged attack. Not sure if it's bugged or if my controller is wigging out. (It's like...the opposite of Ayato. Only wants regular attacks.)

His snake boss is a lot more fun than I expected. Definitely not a copy of the chasm snake. Hides way less, for one. And Kazuha can dump on it, as usual.

OH! I got a QoL update I've been asking for in surveys since Sumeru dropped. (I didn't see it in the livestream, but I can't remember if they even went over QoL updates this time. Might not have because of all the Lantern Rite stuff.) Warp points are marked if they're below ground! Can't even say how many times I've warped in for a daily commission and found myself underground....

Gonna make exploring a bit easier, for sure. Looking forward to more in the morning! Boss farming ahoy.

Bluie · Post Posted: Jan 18, 2023 9:04 am

Used all my wishes in Genshin for Yaoyao and got none. I got a shitton of Xinyan (don't need, have had her full constellation for over a year now), one Yujin, and Alhaitham. Whyyyyyyy. It's not the end of the world because I will get her for free from Lantern Rite, but I wanted m o r e. I wish you could choose a 4* focus on the standard banner, but I guess that would mean less money for Hoyo. Such is the nature of a gacha. Considering I got Wanderer in 20 pulls last update, I should have known my luck was going to take a nosedive lol. Oh well, onto play the new content!

Kikki · Post Posted: Jan 19, 2023 1:50 pm

Was just talking about maybe getting Tales of Arise on Steam Deck and wouldn'tcha know it...Bandai Namco is part of the Lunar New Year sale on Steam. ToA is currently 60% off. Poor old Scarlet Nexus is 75% off...I don't know if that game completely tanked, or what. I see it in the bargain bin at Walmart for a couple of bucks all the time, too, for months now, and it's not even that old a game. GodEater -80%, Digimon Cyber Sleuth -75%, etc.

Not sure I want to pay even $32 CAD for a game I've already 100% completed on PS4, though. Mind you, with no achievements to grab in a replay, maybe it'd be more fun to get around to playing it again on a new system with no achievements logged yet. ToA is the easiest Tales game to 100% in the history of ever, I think.

Well, I'll keep it in mind, though. Sale continues until Feb 1. Right now I seem to be more into reading and writing, though, which is a good change, and I think I should get into resin art after this, at least in a small way. Though going straight into a big way would be more "me", lol. (First thing I ever made with polymer clay was a human torso. Turned out great, too, looks-wise, though I didn't cook it properly so it ended up cracking. Cuz I had no experience and didn't know what I was doing! Not sure I why I can never start small with anything. First garment I made on my own was a lined winter dress coat for my mother, with handmade ribbon pansies sewn onto the pockets. It was very purdy! But I made it of a stupid fabric that wrinkled easily. Because I didn't know what I was doing. I wonder if a theme is to be found in there somewhere...any lessons to be learned...?)

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NEXT DAY EDIT: Have decided I'm going to keep track of my replays in 2023. I'll probably be playing fewer new games due to budget restrictions, and I never kept track of replays since it's not conducive to blitzing through a backlog, but it IS part of my gaming habits and since I've not had much of a backlog ever since the first Blitz I did (in 2018) I no longer need to push myself to get new game completions so I may as well switch over to trying out a more general record of gaming habits.

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EDIT 2: Had previously just started a Berseria replay, as I played it on release 6 years ago, and haven't touched it since and forgotten almost everything in it (except the most major plot point of beginning and end). Will probably replay Zestiria some time after this as I've never tried playing Berseria before Zestiria. (They were released Zest then Bers, but in the in-universe timeline, B is about events that occur around a thousand years before Z happens.) It'll be interesting to see it through this somewhat different lens. To me, Berseria was always more just an explanation of some events of the past that were alluded to in Zestiria. But playing this way, it's like Zestiria is seeing the outcome of some of the things that you did/saw in Berseria.

I'll probably replay ToA sometime this year as well. I do love replays

Ideally, when I love a game, I'll want to replay it once every year or two.

Will also finish my Trio replay (it's killing me that this stupid event for Yuzuki just WILL NOT trigger, though! All because RNG, in theory already stacked in my favour since it can happen on 75% of the days of the week, but rain just won't come down on any of those days. It's ridiculous. I hatehatehate when they make event triggers dependent on RNG. I want specific conditions that I control, thank you!) Will eventually go back to ANB as well...that kind of slipped off the radar for a while. I recall that I was stuck waiting on the 'compete in 3 garden tours' requirement before I could complete Town Restoration #4 and get Sanjay.

Currently quite enjoyable to wander the Yawning Wetlands (Galles Lake Road) but that sounds so ugly, when actually, it's a lovely misty land of grassy wildflower islands floating in a perfectly still, blue lake. It really makes me want spring/summer, though. (-__-) I'll just have to stick my face in this tray of arugula, keep my eyes from glancing outward into the endless white, and pretend, lol.

BerryBea · Post Posted: Jan 20, 2023 7:21 pm

I absolutely understand needing to avoid bloodshed in games, Kikki. I generally prefer that, too, although it is just a preference for me, so if there's enough of a draw in the rest of the game, I can usually still play it (unless it's really gory, then it's a straight "Nope.")
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I've finished two more (short) games - Cozy Typer and Tangle Tower.

Cozy Typer is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's a typing game designed to be relaxing and to encourage you to fix your accuracy before you worry about speed. I'm a very fast typer, but I make a lot of mistakes, which is why I wanted to play. It lets you pick your background image, your background music channel (classical, lofi, etc.), and your typing style. The default is normal typing, where you can backspace and fix mistakes. There are also settings where it will stop if you make a mistake, instead of letting you continue on, and a hard mode setting where you have to get perfect or fail. The typing itself consists of quotes from literature and games. There's a story mode where you go through a four week (in-game) course consisting of lists of quotes to practice your typing. Each day in a week gives you a few more quotes to type and as you go through the weeks, the quotes get longer and more complicated. You get little "emails" from the "creator" of the course throughout. It's cute. It was nice and I did improve my accuracy by the end, so it was a success for me. There's also freeplay, where you can just practice quotes without the framework of the story mode, so I'll probably go back if I feel like I need some more practice, maybe with the other typing modes. (The quotes in story mode are randomized from a larger pool, so you won't be typing the same things over and over if you repeat the story or do freeplay.)

Tangle Tower is a murder-mystery point-and-click adventure game. Point and click adventures used to be one of my favorite types of games, but I rarely play them anymore. (I have a lot less patience for moon logic than I used to.) This one is a bit different though, as instead of picking up items, combining them, and using them to solve puzzles, you're solving a murder mostly by talking to all of the suspects. It has a fun cartoony graphical style and nice voice acting throughout. It's also pretty straightforward. You explore different rooms, find clues, talk to the suspects, share the clues with them, and put together theories based on that. It's kind of hard to get stuck. The story was pretty decent and the game overall was definitely fun for me. I kept wanting to get to the next room, talk to the next person, etc. It does come after the game Detective Grimoire, but it doesn't refer to that one at all, so it can be played as a standalone. (I did enjoy that one as well though!) Recommended if you like adventure games at all!

A friend and I are going to play some Re:Legend starting tomorrow. I played through the intro and I'm really not sure about it yet, but I'm looking forward to playing some more and trying it in co-op. I'm still partway into Kena: Bridge of Spirits, so that'll probably be my next main focus for a solo game. I'm also still slowly chipping away at Mutazione, although I'm not sure if I'm going to keep streaming it or start playing it on my own instead, so that one may pick up soon, too.
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I thought a bit more about my backlog and I think I'm just going to stop counting the hidden object games as part of it, since they register differently in my mind. I'm not worried about them building up and I'm not trying to cut down on the number of them (even though I probably will have played most of what I currently own by the end of the year). So, my "regular" game backlog was 21 at the beginning of the year and it's already down to 16 after finishing a few and retiring a few others. I could possibly get through all of it this year, as I do have some more short indies mixed in there. But, I also have a few Dragon Age games, including Inquisition, and I have Rune Factory 5 too, so I have some longer ones as well. I have maybe 2-3 left that I think could possibly be retired instead of finished, but there should be very few retires left. It's mostly games I think I'll enjoy. I expect I'll get through most of it this year, but if I don't finish this year, I probably will next year, and that'll be fine. I'd be really happy to get it down to about 5 games or less. I wouldn't mind having a couple choices in the wings if it's not too extensive of a list.

Current Backlog (16)

Spoiler:

Mikodesu · Post Posted: Jan 20, 2023 9:57 pm

Finished the quest that unlocks the bulk of desert questing in Genshin tonight. I got....uh, 3/4 through it on my own a couple of days ago without realizing it was tied to a quest and when I got sick of imitating a headless chicken I decided to shift gears to questing, hoping that would give me some sort of direction, and boom! Problem solved.

I'm a LITTLE torn on some of the underground spaces in Sumeru - the desert is way worse than the jungle areas. Some of the bigger areas are just GORGEOUS, I get more and more impressed with the environmental design work in this game with each new area, but... holy hell it's a labyrinth. And a huge labyrinth at that. If we had an underground map, even if we had to explore to draw it Hollow Knight style, I'd have no complaints. The fan-made map tool has a hand-drawn one, which works pretty okay, I just want it in game.

Still chipping away at building Alhaitham. He does OKAY damage outside of a good team, good enough, I'd say. But I've been running around exploring with a hyperbloom team with characters MAX level 70, chunking level 90 content. When you get the right hyperbloom team together you see why the seeds hurt you... It's already almost unfairly good.

Haven't even started Lantern Rite content yet, wanted to focus down a little exploration/questing first. It's nice to see the harbor all dressed up again, but I wish there was a better way to do nighttime lanterns than Thanos snapping them out of existence in the morning.

Aaah well.

Bluie · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 1:15 am

Spent the whole day on Fire Emblem Engage yesterday. It's really fun playing a new Fire Emblem again - I do love me some anime chess. It's tone is very 'Saturday morning shonen' in tone which is honestly fine with me. I do miss the school atmosphere of Three Houses, but I am still enjoying wandering around the Somniel post battles. The polish on this game is insane after 3H's jankfest. Animations are smooth and lively, lips are synced, battles are dynamic and completely reflect the overworld map, characters have unique animations, and so on. The only things I'm not seeing completely polished is there's a lot of clipping with characters who have long hair or long robes, and the textures on certain clothes could be better. Not gamebreaking, obviously, but it's still funny seeing a villain's robes clip through their boobs.

I'm currently on chapter 7 and just recruited Anna, the series staple. Current fave unit is Clanne paired with Celica because I've turned him into an absolute nuke who takes little to no damage. Louis paired with Sigurd is high up there too. I also absolutely adore Sommie. Whoever in Intelligent Systems thought about and implemented a derpy dog who follows you around and makes adorable noises needs a raise, now. Sometimes I lose him running around, and then I'll turn a corner to him running up to me with his big grin and my heart just melts. Where's my Sommie plushie, Nintendo?

Roinda · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 2:37 am

Spent yesterday playing AC, alternating between NH and NL. Played some SoS 3oT as well.

Am currently on 19 Spring so have Lulukoko unlocked and got Westown to rank D. Am not rushing into marriage this time, I’m going to concentrate on my farm and getting the town rankings up. I’ll worry about marriage after. I’m not even sure at the moment who I want to marry.

Hokko Life and Harvestella are due to arrive at some point today, so looking forward to those and have pre-ordered SOS AWL.

Harvest Moon kawaii · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 1:38 pm

Spoiler:

I'm really close to finishing the Pokedex in Pokemon Violet.

Next, I think I'll beat (finish) Zombie Exodus on Steam, and Harmonia (on the Switch) since they're shorter games.

My next big game will be me finishing Persona 5 Royal (on the Switch). I'm only 14 hours (approximately) in and still haven't beat the first boss. I think Persona 5 Royal is even longer than Pokemon Violet, like double or triple the time. (120 hours to 180 hours)!

Add on:

I recently bought Even if Tempest, Grammarian Ltd. (releases on January 25th, 2023), Persona 3 Portable, and Persona 4 Golden, and Idol Manager. (all on Switch)

Spoiler:

Roinda · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 2:10 pm

Played Hokko Life up until the first villager moved in. A bit confusing at first but managed to find my way around.

Went back to AC:NH. Started a new island on my second switch. Decided to have a go at my own version of Nintentalk’s hard mode challenge. I was going to add a picture of my island but don’t know how.

Kikki · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 5:33 pm

Roinda wrote: ↑Jan 21, 2023 2:10 pmI was going to add a picture of my island but don’t know how.

The way you can post images seems to have been updated a little along with the last time the board was overhauled, so it's easier than ever, now. I prefer the original way because I can control the size that way and I get rid of the frame, but for the super easy way...you just have to paste down your image url. You can do so and hit preview on your post to see how it looks without actually going through with it, if you like. However, the address must end in .jpg or .png, as far as I know. (Unless that was also overhauled and more file types are accepted now...that I do not know).

But Fogu doesn't host images, so your image must already be uploaded to the internet somewhere. Because it's FREE, unlike Photobucket and most other image-hosting sites, I like imgur. (I also like their format with how you can choose the image size without having to actually resize your image.)

I can also tell you how to format using the html tags (there's a button three to the left of the text-size drop-down menu, of a tiny rectangle housing a mountain and a sun...that's the image button that places image tags around your url.)

The difference is this. Just pasting in the url, with no image tags, I get this:

But if I use the image tags instead, with that same image that I uploaded to imgur and choosing the 'large thumbnail' option before copying the image url, I can do this instead:

If you need clarification, just ask

FarmingForDaysMan · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 6:16 pm

LEOOOOOO—Ahem, anyways, I haven’t posted until now because I’ve barely had time to pick up my Switch :’D I’m going to try to get a few minutes of ACNH in tonight. I got to play the game one day last week and was able to get some things done. First, I finished paying off a second stone staircase that I needed. I’ve formed a neighborhood of sorts at the very top of my island. The top of my island has a three-tier cliff: the bottom tier is the mainland, where the town hall, shops, museum, and everything else is; the middle tier houses (from left to right) Hamlet (well, not Hamlet anymore, but I’ll explain that in a minute), Tutu, Vesta, ermmm a female Siberian Tiger whose name I cannot remember but I should know it because she’s sooooo cute, Renee the Rhino, and Monique; the smaller top tier houses (from left to right again) Apollo, Gala, myself, Beardo, and Fauna.

Anyways, as I said, my second stone staircase has finally been completed, so now all three tiers are connected. I created and mailed snowflake wreaths to all of my villagers, so now we all match (twinsies times 5 1/2!) Oh, and then I allowed Hamlet leave Ambrosia (he was an original member of the island). I had 3 NookMiles tickets, started panicking when I had 1 left and hadn’t yet met a camper that I liked, and found Soleil with my last ticket. What a perfect trade

She’s so cute. I had her in ACNL at one point, but she wasn’t a part of my perfect village. I miss my perfect ACNL gang

Fauna was part of that group, and Tutu’s practically the same as Pango, so I guess 1/5 of the gang is with me.

In conclusion, I wrapped up my gameplay by ordering two party light banner thingamajigs with the NookMiles that I had worked really hard for. I’m gonna put them over my staircases. At least I think I can do that. I’ve been working on collecting as much fruit as possible so that I can chop and/or dig up all of my trees so that I can figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my island.

I hope everyone has been having an excellent 2023 so far! :D

cinnamon_yuki · Post Posted: Jan 21, 2023 9:54 pm

I've just received confirmation that Fire Emblem Engage will still have the romance mechanic so I went and bought the game yesterday.

I haven't started yet because got home pretty late and found that my thin case of my joycons became sticky so I have to clean those up and replaced and recalibrate my controller and audio. It took a while plus the Day 1 update. After that, I had a Lunar New Year dinner with my family and was very sleepy afterward that I can't decide what to name Alear.

As for the FE Engage Expansion Pass, I will probably buy the expansion once the last wave is available. It's quite expensive too; $30 for the expansion pass.

Going to start soon, now I have decided on a name now.

I did play a bit of P3P when it was released on Game Pass and decided to start a new game once I get it on Steam. Probably by the time I finished with the rest of my game lineup, I might get P3P on Steam and hopefully at a discount.

So far, I'm done with DDV now that I unlocked them all. Excited for February for sure. XD

Bluie · Post Posted: Jan 22, 2023 3:07 am

Genshin be testing my tear ducts. First I see the "I've Never Forgotten" video sung by the Chinese VA, then I go into the second part of the Lantern Rite and get absolutely destroyed by the story this year. I had to stop and take a few deep breaths in the middle of a cutscene to stop myself from bawling while my husband was working lol. Cloud Retainer's English VA did a wonderful job (as did the young Ping). I'm almost scared to see what part three is going to bring after the death flag ridden Xiao PV released last week. Honestly, « What The Eggplant » have the Genshin writers been eating ever since 3.0? There were sad moments in the past story, yes, but now I feel like I'm constantly being gut punched. I guess it's the whole 'kid gloves are off' thing. The story is evolving, we're getting closer to figuring out what's going on with this world and inevitably closer to the main villains. My hype is so high for Fontaine that I hope it doesn't turn into another Inazuma, but I think the devs have learned their lesson, hopefully.

Today I'm going to finish NieR Reincarnation (the last chapter of part 2 just released) and then work on Fire Emblem Engage some more.

simside · Post Posted: Jan 22, 2023 9:53 am

I... think I'm about to finish P5R? I... think I finished the final palace, and I saved just before the boss battle? It is hard to tell. I still have about a month until the palace deadline, so I'm thinking I'll get the more "final" story wrapup when the deadline happens. But the calling card cutscene was fancy for sure. :D I wish I could finish it, but I am still mostly enjoying it, other than I really shouldn't have done that last palace in one sitting - I tried to play some on Friday night, but I kept falling asleep and messing up the battles, wasting SP, etc.

Which does not count the Royal calendar extension. But it'll probably be less intense than the plot wrapup. Maybe.

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My partner has been waiting (very patiently) for me to finish so we can start Temtem. We might start it today, because I was thinking I would finish P5R over Christmas, then early in January... and I really don't have much left now! Right? I feel bad for making him wait to start a new game.

I gave up on a Diablo III playthrough in order to focus on beating more backlog. The season will finish in a couple weeks, Darkening of Tristram will end, and the holiday event will expire, so that will interrupt my playthrough anyway. I am mad I won't get my 70 Demon Hunter, but I might go back and play non-seasonal to finish her up before D4 comes out.

Small games - I really am almost done with Nazarick Picross, just have to finish clip picross on chapter 8 and do the puzzles in chapter 9. Been playing more of that. Also started Taiko no Tatsujin Rhythmic Adventure 2, which is... I had a hard time relearning the controls, which aren't super-great on Switch Lite, and the new party dynamics aren't very well-explained, so I kept drawing the battles for awhile. I guess I'll figure it out, but the fact remains that these probably aren't the best version of the series. XD I'm hoping to finish Rhythmic Adventure (and Picross... and Persona) within the next week or so.