Backlog 2024

[simside]

I think I'm near the end of Hollow Knight. I've got all the Nail Arts, and... possibly most of the items/moves? I think the two blank spots in my inventory are for keys (one definitely was).

BIG congrats on making it that far in Hollow Knight! You're getting close to done (excepting the free DLC content---the circus is one of those--but as a warning DLC is largely the game's most difficult combat.) Heck of a feat to get through such an intricate world. Hollow Knight is pretty rewarding though, except for a couple of ugly, Dark Souls style walks back to bosses.

I DID IT! I spent the last three days clearing out everything before the final boss, and I somewhat regret it. I skipped a bunch of stuff during my initial exploration that I systematically cleared out after I got the double-jump, which led to a lot of absurdly easy fights. And then I got sucker-punched by, like, Failed Champion. I liked it a lot better once I got more badges. I hated the difficulty early on, since you couldn't adjust strategy and weapons to the fight, and I had a better time after I could. Good game, and the worldbuilding and polish is top notch. But... way more absurdly hard than I thought it would be, I'd somehow never heard anyone mention that before.

---

Hollow Knight makes 9 games beaten this year!

I've been hyping myself up over what game I want to play next. Ideally, it would be Phoenix Wright->Tsukihime, but Hollow Knight was on the TV Switch, and I prefer to play visual novels on the Lite. I'm in the mood to play Pokemon again, and kinda want to go through the S/V DLC, but again, Scarlet's save is on the Lite. I was vaguely planning on playing Violet on the TV Switch, but I'd rather play the DLC first so I don't get burned out. I was thinking that the next big game I played would be Banner Saga, but I think I may do I Am Setsuna before that. Setsuna has been in the little case where I keep my pending games for, like, four years. I should just do it.

Stitch looks good! It's going on my list. I love picross-type puzzles.

Hey, Simside. I thought I'd specify that the picross-puzzle -like game is called "Stitch." with a period at the end of the word, for some reason.

Thank you! I found it, but for some reason the preview video wasn't working on the eShop. Looks like it works a bit different than regular nonograms, and the embroidery setup is super-cute, so I'm very curious about it.

[Bluie]

Hollow Knight makes 9 games beaten this year!

Congrats on beating Hollow Knight! Now take your obligatory clown nose and join me in the Silksong waiting corner. Or don't. It'll be better for your sanity...

---

Did the Dawntrail Healer role quest and now I'm tentatively working on the Ranged DPS one. I'm basically gleaning all the EXP I can from quests available on the world maps first and then I'll switch over to roulettes and FATE farming. I am not looking forward to playing tank again, so I'll be leaving it til last lol.

Other than that, I've made some progress in Tsukihime (currently in Arcueid's route) and I've decided to drop Rhapsody III. This is gonna sound super lazy of me I guess, but Rhapsody III having no easy mode (when the previous titles are easy or have that mode) and forcing me to grind has turned me off of it entirely. It's a side story collection anyways, so I don't NEED to play it, but if I'm ever curious, I'll just watch the rest on YT. I also deleted a ton of games off my Switch I know I have literally no motivation and probably wont in the foreseeable future. IIRC, I narrowed it down to Cattails 2, Harvest Moon SNES, and Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher for the games I genuinely still want to play. I'll get to them when I get to them, but the desire is real regardless. That leaves Octopath II on my PS5 as the only other game in my backlog that isn't a MMO or Live Service game.

As I type this, I'm going my weekly universe runs in Star Rail (« Harvest Goddess » bless auto for long « Mr.Gourmet's hat » bosses like Cirrus) and I'm currently deciding if I want to go all in on ZZZ today or watch some shows. I'm on my second week of vacation now and it's gonna be gone before I know it.

[Mikodesu]

I DID IT! I spent the last three days clearing out everything before the final boss, and I somewhat regret it. I skipped a bunch of stuff during my initial exploration that I systematically cleared out after I got the double-jump, which led to a lot of absurdly easy fights.

Double big congrats!

Combat definitely takes some getting used to, but I think you'd be surprised at how much better you've gotten at it to get to the point of beating the game. (My first time through I got so frustrated with Watcher Knight that I quit, and ended up playing the whole game again to get to that point.)

Kinda amazing that a game that big and polished was made primarily by two people. (If you ever feel like going back to Hollow Knight there is more than one ending to the game, aside from all the free update/DLC stuff. But for now just...bask in the glow of your accomplishment! )


--
ZZZ is growing on me. Definitely a lighter weight story than Genshin or Star Rail, but it seems built to lean on character banter, which works. It's high tier JRPG fodder; good enough. The review I was waiting for finally dropped, and turned out sort of as I expected: gacha bad, game good. Apparently the game's director said in an interview that Street Fighter is one of his favorite/most played games, which makes a lot of sense now that I've heard it. There's a sense of weight in ZZZ's combat animations that's missing from Hoyo's other games.

What I'd love to see is some more optional complexity as time goes on. Combat is fun, but so far it's still too simple. At this point I'm pretty sure I'll keep the game installed and play from time to time. Also I enjoy the standard cast well enough to just save all my new primos until a really fun character (maybe with a more complex play style) comes out.

Hoping by the weekend to get back to the Elden Ring DLC. Still a few more bosses I'd like to best, and the final area to unlock. Final boss is probably a no--I have heard bad things. The phrase "worst boss Fromsoft has ever made" has come up more than once. But the rest is very doable.

[PsychGamer]

I have a few...hundred games on Steam alone so keeping a proper backlog is difficult but I'm working on it!

Currently Playing:
Animal Parade - Wii
Hades - PC
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - DS

Plan to Play:
Winds of Anthos - PC
Hero of Leaf Valley - PSP
Celeste - PC

Finished:
Magical Melody
Princess Peach Showtime
Super Mario RPG Remake
Paper Mario TTYD
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

This is a working list as of 9:30am this morning (7/10) and could easily change :D

[Bluie]

Finished the Arcueid route in Tsukihime. I read the manga adaption of this route aaaaages ago, like, freshmen year in college (which is over 10 years ago now loooool) so there wasn't many surprises, but it was still highly enjoyable. I've started down the Ciel route, but I think I need a little break before going full tilt into it.

Nothing is happening in Genshin, and I do not care for the new step-on-me-stompy-mommy in Star Rail, so kinda eh on them until the next update. I did finish building Lynx, so I now have three healers for varying content. I'm planning on building Herta next, but alas, I am going broke building all these characters. Gonna have to build up my credits reserve again. Other than that, still soaking up EXP from quests in FFXIV (I've been doing one zone daily to not burn out), and I've gotten into ZZZ proper. It's still too early to call, but Lucy is probably my favorite so far. IDK what it is with me and characters that throw pigs, but first I fell in love with Topaz in Star Rail yeeting Numby, and now I have Lucy and her three pigs that she literally hits like golf balls (with a bat) into enemies. Like, do I have a type or something??? What would this 'type' even be called? Lmao. Anyways, game is fun. Gacha has been nice to me and has coughed up every A Rank except Anton with 0 dollars spent. I got Nekomata as my first S Rank, so I've been running a Nekomata, Lucy, Soukaku team for pretty much everything.

I had intended to spend all day playing ZZZ, however, I remembered my friend's birthday was coming up and I wanted to draw something for her, and I did. It ended up leading me into finding several WIPs I legit forgot about and now I'm still here typing, still on my 'artist' set up (I prop up my laptop on a lap table and put a cushy mousepad down to draw - yes, I draw exclusively with a mouse) deciding if I want to try and finish them or not. Hrmmmmm, maybe???

[Code_Name_Geek]

I have a few...hundred games on Steam alone so keeping a proper backlog is difficult but I'm working on it!

Welcome to the forums! I think a lot of us here are in the same boat, but regardless I hope you have fun with the games you're playing!

~

I'm at 8/10 normal endings for Shadow the Hedgehog now, and starting to get faster at clearing levels. Still haven't decided if I'll definitely go for the completionist challenge before moving on to my next Sonic game - this may be a game I keep loaded in the GameCube to play a route whenever I feel like it, since they're pretty quick to get through. But anyways moving quickly towards an story completion, only two more normal endings and the true ending to go! I didn't expect to get through this one so quickly after Sonic Heroes took me forever but this feels like a much fairer game comparatively, not quite so many frustrating deaths or painfully long levels (other than a few certain Ark missions...). Next on the Sonic list is... Sonic '06, for better or for worse. But I am looking forward to playing a game on my new (to me) PS3! Gotta do a little tinkering with one of the controllers before then since it has a sticky button though.

I also finished the community centre bundles in Stardew Valley, and got to Ginger Island for the first time ever (I first played before it was added and haven't made it that far since). Haven't gotten the chance to do much there but I'm excited to explore the new area!

In ACNH, Quinn, one of my starting villagers asked to move out. I liked her, but since she still had the boring starting house and everything I decided to let her go. And then on my villager hunt I found Bluebear, who is an old fav of mine, so I'm excited to see her move in! I have 3 peppy villagers now but of all of them Bluebear is the one I'm most likely to keep.

[greensara]

I think I have finally begun the last leg of Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes. I have already put in over 90 hours I think (oh my word!) but that is padded some by my frequent pausing for other stuff irl and because I was trying to do most of the side questing, recruiting, and castle/town building. The story itself is fine, standard jrpg stuff in my opinion, but I enjoyed the town building and trying to recruit all possible heroes. The combat is okay, but having 6 party members can make it tedious, though helpful in boss battles. Hero combos and support powers help mix it up a bit. I am pretty happy with my present team even though two of the guys were originally chosen because I thought they were eye candy. One turned out to be a great magic character as he leveled up. The other is still basically eye candy, but I am ok with that, lol. There was another guy I wanted to add to my pretty boys that joined late game, but the kids hated him for whatever reason and wanted a different character I was tired of to stay. Negotiated to temporarily add a main character in that slot instead, though I may sneak Mr. Pretty Archer Elf back in later, lol.

I have also been playing Piczle Cross Story of Seasons. It's really cute and fun, though a little on the easy side. Some of the puzzles are hard for me to mentally match with the normal character artwork, but one I guessed who it was before I finished. Mayor Thomas! It was funny because after I finished I was like, "I was right! Oh I better take a picture, Thomaster on FOGU would love this! Oh wait, I can't send screenshots straight to Twitter anymore, boo." I will have to look into a new way to share photos again when I have some free time. It was so handy to do straight from the Switch.

After I finish Hundred Heroes, I may try to start My Time at Sand Rock, depending on how close it ends up being to when school and the new job starts.

Next Day Edit: Woo-hoo! Beat Hundred Heroes! That's one more finally, lol. Good gravy, I think those were the longest credits I have ever seen in a game. I'm glad they had so much support from backers, but wow!

[simside]

Hollow Knight!

Spoiler:

Double big congrats!

Combat definitely takes some getting used to, but I think you'd be surprised at how much better you've gotten at it to get to the point of beating the game. (My first time through I got so frustrated with Watcher Knight that I quit, and ended up playing the whole game again to get to that point.)

Kinda amazing that a game that big and polished was made primarily by two people. (If you ever feel like going back to Hollow Knight there is more than one ending to the game, aside from all the free update/DLC stuff. But for now just...bask in the glow of your accomplishment! )

I was tempted to play a bit more of the post-game (I didn't re-challenge any of the bosses I didn't have to, and I'm under the impression there's a room full of bosses somewhere you can smack with a stick like a hornet's nest, along with the endings I didn't get), but I really needed to stop for the sake of my blood pressure, lol. I got so mad at Failed Champion that I looked up what were considered the harder bosses. I'm usually not very good at this sort of skill-based action game, but I was surprised that I had an easy time with some of them. Conversely, the fight that almost made me quit the game was a miniboss guarding something trivial that spawned flies.

Finishing felt good though, and now that I know what to expect, I'll probably set it aside and run it again later.

Congrats on beating Hollow Knight! Now take your obligatory clown nose and join me in the Silksong waiting corner. Or don't. It'll be better for your sanity...

Thank you! I was interested in Silksong before I played Hollow Knight, just because it's hard to imagine the level of polish and perfection they must be running it through. I'm a little intimidated by what the end product will be, especially after how good Hollow Knight had with less time and budget.

---

I'm on vacation this week, and it turns out I'm running SOS:AWL as hard as I possibly can, as much as I possibly can. And I'm only on Chapter 3. ;_; I'm trying to grab everything, but predictably letting a few things go - I didn't realize Egg Salad needed specific hybrid crops, none of which were things I was growing in winter (and I didn't have time for off-season Lamp Flower ones to ripen), so I had to let Tei's request expire. Similarly, I could not get child bath time to trigger, despite trying nearly every opportunity it was available, and the kid being in a good mood many times. No idea.

Almost everyone is max happiness, with only six folks to work on. I'm grinding through the hybrids, and was sad to learn that the Lamp flower doesn't breed into the produce. ;_; My barns are full, and I'm just about to expand my barn. I have the additional field. Life is good. I want Daa-chan, but I'm not sure if I can do it. The barn expansion will help.

I also started Picross X this week. I haven't quite given up on Pocket Card Jockey, but I'm only doing dailies until I get a stamina item, and I wanted more puzzles. Picross X is a lot different than I was expecting! I'm really enjoying all the challenge modes it has, and the different powers you equip to high score/progress. I'm unsure how long it is. There are 5 areas so far, and each one seems to have ten trials. There are flip versions of each challenge, so 20 challenges per area. There are also five invisible outlines below the area boxes, which may be five additional areas! There's also a ridiculous amount of skins and customization. My little adversary worm currently has zebra stripes, and my Pictobit is dressed like a priestess. Alas, this is not a wind-down game, because it's speed picross. But I had to know what it was like.

[K8sMum]

I've got a copy of SoS: FoMT coming from Amazon tomorrow. They have a Prime deal of $20.

I had it when it first came out, but the speed that time passes stressed me out. I want to try it again and try to be more patient with it (and myself).

[Bluie]

I had another Danny Devito 'oh my « Harvest Goddess », I get it now' moment with Star Rail. I've slowly been building all the characters I own (which is all the 4*s currently available in game aside from my handful of 5*s) and I've been working on Herta lately because I have all her Eidolons. I'm not 100% done with her, but I decided to give her a whirl in Pure Fiction and uhhhh, yeah, it was pretty eye opening. Considering the game gives you her for free 6 (or more, I can't remember) times, she's a crazy insane unit that I've been ignoring. I didn't get all the stars in Pure Fiction, but I got most of them for the first time since the mode dropped.

I've also been making good progress in Tsukihime. I think I'm halfway through Ciel's route now. This route is more or less brand new for me because afaik, there's no outside adaption to this route in particular or if there is, I never consumed it. Regardless, it's enjoyable and it even caught me off guard a few times. I've been so fatigued lately though that I keep falling asleep after a few hours of play. It's not boring, it's just that the scrolling text sorta lulls me to sleep when there isn't anything big happening in the story. Still, I wish I could just stay awake so I can get it done. I have other games I'd like to move onto, but I want to finish this one first.

[Mikodesu]

Got up to get a drink just now (before I planned to write this post), go into the kitchen...and look under the bowl next to the electric kettle...and there is a tiny baby gecko (maybe an anole, not sure) peering out from under it... I was getting heart palpitations the whole time, but I got it out without any harm or anybody in the house waking up. Got myself a little piece of candy as a reward.


Still kinda lost in the Hoyo void. I WANT to go back to Elden Ring, but I think I'll get the last bit of ZZZ story knocked out before I do. I'm in (I assume) the last new area of the update--the one with the fat cat model. Still having fun with ZZZ; I do finally get what people were saying about it from beta tests now--boss battles are where it's at. When you get into a flow state with boss combat I imagine that's what it feels like to play DMC or Bayonetta. Attack strings, dodges, assists, unloading skills into ultimates, over and over again until you or the boss is dead. It feels AWESOME. But the game does need other things to build up to and cool down from that, and the rest is still pretty good.

I did learn recently that the whole deal of frontloading stories with a bunch of dialogue seems to be a bit of a cultural thing. At LEAST ZZZ lets you skip everything easily. Bless. I do not want to play the snake minigame with randos (it was annoying enough waiting endlessly on matchmaking the first time)...but I'll probably do it for the resources.


1 more day to the Star Rail livestream...keeping fingers crossed for a DOT character. If no I will be saving for a WHILE. Generally speaking, works for me. Probably a good time to put Star Rail into a bit of a holding pattern--when Natlan comes out at least. Not seeing any complaints about the lack of Screwlum on socials, but LOTS about Sunday. Kinda makes me wonder if we'll go back to Penacony at some point, and if they're doing 2 patches of Space China to get that out of the way. Who knows, maybe they'll both show up then.


Speaking of Genshin, haven't updated yet, but I did see the Neuvillette shenanigans. Fascinating that "spin to win" is the thing that finally made Hoyo roll back changes. (Yet not on Nahida... ) Though I guess you could call that a nerf.

[greensara]

Got to the beginning of Chapter 4 in the Paper Mario Remake with the kids. It's slow going, but we're making progress. It's not that it's hard it's just not new to me like it is to them so sometimes I get a little bored. Shh! I don't want that to spoil it for them.

I have started playing My Time at Sandrock and my word, it is just as addictive as Portia, if not more because of the qol changes. I had picked up a physical copy on Switch earlier this year at a discount but only now have gotten to playing it. It came with a code for some DLC clothes and some ad for Sandrock online, whatever that is. I played for a while but was having a hard time managing the water aspect. I heard some people say pets can help with water and remembered seeing a pet DLC on the eShop (though I still want to adopt the cute corgi in town too). Since I had the gold points I went ahead and got him. The gecko pet is adorable!! He's really helping with the water too even by his lonesome.

[simside]

I had this week off, and played nearly 40 hours of SoS:AWL. This has gotten me approximately 1 chapter farther, to fall 3. ^_^;;; I don't think I like it that much! But I'll probably finish it. I finished generating all the 2nd gen hybrids (except for a few trees, and I'm about to start cutting down the gen 1 trees and growing the new ones), and am working on generating seeds and cooking quantities. Just got the processing room for the barn. I don't think I can get Daa-chan in year 2 for 1million, but I'll have trivialized money within a chapter for sure. I only have two villagers (and my cat) not at max friendship - Charlie (who is hard to catch not sitting in his house and started off hating me for some reason) and Flora, who was one of the last ones I started giving daily gifts to.

Weirdly, I think my hybrid Wonderfuls glitched. I believe it registered the Wonderful for 15 rare crops, but not 5 or 10. I thought it might have to do with shipping them (I've been generating more seeds and cooking with them), but I didn't realize it gave me the third Wonderful. When I check the encyclopedia, it's registering all but three or four 2nd gen crops (presumably ones I haven't grown yet), and I think I should also have earned the 20 hybrid Wonderful. I'll have to double-check. Googling doesn't seem to find anyone else with the issue, so I may post a topic here once I check my list again.

Picross X is really fun! I played through the 5 basic areas in single player, and it unlocked 5 more. So, there are 10 areas with 10 trials each, and those each have unlockable "shadow" versions, for 200 total trials in single-player. I unlocked my last ability slot, and only need two more abilities to have the full list. I also unlocked the other game play mode, which I haven't tried yet. Lots of content!

I didn't start Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney or I Am Setsuna, in favor of trying to hustle through AWL. I'll probably start Setsuna this weekend though, and make a more earnest effort to play AWL through the week. I was playing about a season a week before my vacation, which will take forever. I'll try to play 5 days at a time. It'll still take me more than a month to finish, but I'm hoping I'll move through it faster once I start completing things. I may also just bust out Phoenix Wright on my lunchbreak or something, I'm really craving a VN right now.

[Bluie]

Finished Tsukihime: A Piece of Glass Moon. While it wasn't the best visual novel I've ever played, it was still quite the ride. It does feel like it's more of an introduction to the rest of the (still being developed) story, but it stands alone just fine too. There are a handful of characters that are introduced and have a few scenes here and there, but then never show up again OR are only involved for a brief exposition before disappearing forever again. I ended up looking all of them up online to see if I missed anything, but no, I haven't, they're just not going to be expanded on until the next part of the remake gets released. They just recently revealed the name of part two ('The Other Side of Red Garden') so hopefully it's on its way and wont take 10 years to develop this time. I'd like to experience the whole story in my lifetime.

In typical Nasu story telling, I found myself overall bored with the romance while the plot itself was the highlight. Ciel's route had some very interesting twists and turns, and my favorite character ended up being someone I didn't expect at all. They were insufferable in Arcueid's route but highly entertaining in Ciel's which ended up being the biggest surprise for me overall. With all this being said, the production values of Nasuverse VNs lately has really set my expectations stupidly high in this genre. They're so cinematic that it's gonna be hard to go back lol. Oh well, I'm sure I can adjust if needed.

Now I want to get back to Octopath Traveler II, but one of my friends who has never missed on recommending me games is pestering me to play an indie game called Astlibra. I really don't want to add another game after just finishing one, but then again, this is the same person who introduced me to Hollow Knight and Owlboy, games I had (well, still have) deep obsessions with, so I should really just take their word for it lol. 25 beans on Switch... I hope it runs well. Wish it was on PS4/5.

[Code_Name_Geek]

I finished the story of Shadow the Hedgehog today! I meant to finish it last night, but I made a mistake with the routes the first time and then a power outage cut my second attempt short right at the end (lesson learned to not keep gaming on a power-dependent console in a thunderstorm!). So I had to go back today and redo the boss fight for the last normal ending, then play the true ending. I've enjoyed the story of the game a great deal, and I'm itching to read and/or write some fanfiction, so might be doing that soon haha. I plan to keep playing this game to go for some more completion stuff, like A ranks and the hidden keys and maybe even the 326 possible routes if I feel so inclined. But I'll probably start the next Sonic game on my list before I'm finished with all of that since that could (and probably will) take me forever. Now that I've done all the story endings I don't mind skipping cutscenes though, so that will hopefully speed up my runs a fair bit.

Other than that, I've played a bit of Stardew Valley here and a bit of ACNH there. In ACNH, I finally got rid of the last villager from my autofills that was really bugging me, Benedict - nothing personal to him, but I was annoyed to get a second chicken after Goose (who I actually like, though I'll eventually have to let him go as well since he has the boring starter house). So Olivia is moving in next.