Finished Chants of Sennaar. It was pretty good, altho it got a little bit repetitive towards the end. I did enjoy the

Played a bit of Shenzhen I/O. It’s fun, but I’m a bit annoyed at how logic gates are (not) used and overall it makes me want to work on actual hardware projects.

Started Library of Ruina, hopefully it’s less painful than Lobotomy Corporation, which I had to drop as I couldn’t figure it out even tho I liked it.

Also tried Persona 5 Strikers. The combat is fun, but everything in the game feels a bit off and I can’t explain why I’m not really enjoying it.

This week I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which I started a while ago. Compared to the first one which I did not like at all, both story and gameplay are a huge improvement. I actually am interested in the characters now and the combat is pretty fun, altho I still haven’t had a chance to experiment much with it.

I have however a few minor complaints: the blade gacha is a terrible concept and I can’t understand why it was put in the game; on handheld, performance is generally good but the graphics are ruined by a really strong sharpening filter; Pyra’s outfit is dumb and doesn’t fit the character.

I’m also playing Chants of Sennarr and it’s really good! I especially liked the design of the first three languages. The artstye is also really nice.

I’m back to Trails of Cold Steel 2. It is better than the first one. It still feels a bit like padding but it doesn’t feel as pointless. The game structure doesn’t feel as formulaic and repetitive, there’s less quests and it moves much quicker. The characters also finally look different from eachother, as they are no longer in uniform.

The issues tho are still mostly the same: the combat is a downgrade from the Crossbell game (the orbment system in Cold Steel is basically materia from FF7, instead of the much more interesting previous implementation) and I don’t care about any of these characters as they barely have a personality (I blame this on the social link-style mechanics and bloated cast).

Bad week this time:

I got a bit tired of Trails of Cold Steel 2, so to take a break I tried playing Wolfenstein 2, but it gave me motion sickness (not sure why, as the game is running fine and I tried increasing the fov, which usually works for me). I started looking for other games to play, but I can’t find anything that clicks.

I tried CrossCode again, restarting it after stopping around a year ago at the first real dungeon (the mines).

I really like the art, the characters are charming and the premise is interesting enough.

The puzzles are alright, altho they’ve already started getting repetitive (I’m after the halfway point of the second dungeon). The combat too seems alright, but the enemies are really annoying to fight, as they all force you to wait to hit them, which I find really boring.

Overall I don’t like it and will very likely drop it now. After like 10 hours the actual story hasn’t advanced much and the MMO’s story is not at all interesting. I tried doing a few sidequests as I had heard they were good and I felt I was underleveled, but I ended up being disappointed by what I found. Same for the exploration, mostly because it was unrewarding and the graphics lack depth, making telling apart different heights for puzzles and platforming really hard. I could probably keep ranting, but I’ll end it here.

I just finished FFIX, which I liked a lot. I quite liked that it had themes that are usually more common in scifi than fantasy. I am however a bit disappointed with how some characters feel like the get forgotten after encountering them.

I’ve also started Trails of Cold Steel 2. I have low expectations, after the disappointment that was CS1, but the start seems OK, although I’m always bothered by how the relationship between Rean and his sister is written.

My target is 60, but depending on the game I find framerates down to 20 technically playable (if it’s stable), but I need a bit of time to get used to it.

For framerates above 60, however, I can’t really feel any difference so I usually set a cap at 60 to reduce heat and because the on board sound card is poorly isolated and picks up noise from the gpu.

I played a bit of Granblue Fantasy Relink, I’m at the last chapter of the story. I still haven’t finished it, the story itself wasn’t particularly memorable, but the environments were gorgeous and the gameplay is fun. For the gameplay tho, I’m a bit worried about the endgame/postgame, as there wasn’t much variety in fights.

I’m still playing Fire Emblem Engage. The gameplay is overall really good, but I’m a bit confused that new units are much better than most of the previous ones. From the initial party I think I’ve kept using only Chloé and Jean, while the others had better replacements every few chapters. It’s not exactly a complaint but it feels a bit weird.

I would have tried continuing FFVII Rebirth, but I remembered I bought FFIX last sales and played that nonstop during the weekend.

I too am in the mood for Wolfenstein, I’m thinking of playing the second one.

Remake is great, I replayed it recently too in anticipation for Rebirth.

I too like the characters, which is why I’ll try to continue, but I’m probably gonna play the original game instead. I’ve already played around 20 hours of it, up to just after the

, and while the fast pacing is a bit jarring when compared to Remake, I enjoyed it much more than the parts of Rebirth I played.

I played a bit of FFVII rebirth at the start of the week, but then had to pause I don’t have my main pc with me and I doubt it plays well on deck. I’m not sure if I wanna continue it tho, as my overall experience with the game up to now (middle of Costa del Sol) has been pretty bad.

I started Granblue Fantasy Relink, I think I’m near the end of the story mode. It’s pretty fun, although I wish the story too was coop.

I’m also playing Fire Emblem Engage (chapter 14), and it’s much better than Awakening: the maps are more interesting and the break system encourages you to be aggressive and makes using weaker units easier. The engage rings are pretty interesting; they feel a bit overpowered, but at the same time I feel like I’m not using them optimally.

I’ve been playing Fire Emblem Awakening. I had the dumb idea of playing hard/classic for the first time (having also not played much FE before), so a few of the last chapters have been a bit too challenging: I got stuck on chapter 17 for a couple of days. It’s been enjoyable, I think I’m near the end (chapter 21).

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out on PC, so I played that for most of the weekend, and I’m rather disappointed with a couple of things: the open world in the first area is the usual dull ubisoft-like checklist of chores. Luckily it doesn’t take too much to get past it, but then there’s my other complaint: the pacing and tone of the story feel off. There’s been a few too many breaks which IMO ruined the momentum. I’m now at Costa del Sol, and I’m already tired of the minigames.

Initially I had planned on playing Emio, since I played the demo and liked it, but the copy I ordered got delayed, the lost, so I’m gonna get it some other time.

Happy new year!

This week I finished the Endwalker MSQ in ffxiv, which I loved. I’m now taking a break before going into the post ew patch quests to complete most raids which I slipped and a few other quests, while leveling white mage.

Played a bit more of Guild Wars 2 with a friend, but continuing only confirmed our negative first impressions, so we dropped it a bit after the first set of story missions.

For non videogames: we also continued our dnd campaign and played call of cthulhu’s Lightless Beacon

Finally actually started Endwalker in FFXIV and I’m enjoying it.

Tried Outward with a friend. We liked the initial quest, but we didn’t enjoy the game after that and didn’t feel like continuing it. We are trying Guild Wars 2 now, and it’s enjoyable enough, but I’m a bit confused on what to do and why do it.

We also have been playing Rabbit and Steel.

Outward

Outward looks interesting. I’m not completely sold on it because of the open-endedness and survival elements, but we might try it as it’s cheap.

Edit: we tried it for ~8h and liked the start but didn’t really get anything (combat, progression, etc.), so we dropped it as we weren’t enjoying it.

We did try BG3 when it came out, but were disappointed in how the coop interacted with dialogues and story events so we ended up dropping it. I kept playing it alone up to the start of act 2, but didn’t enjoy it so we never tried coop again. We are playing an actual DnD campaign tho.

I haven’t played PoE, but one issue I have with coop in action RPGs is that everyone is mostly doing their own thing independently of the other players and the classes are all damage dealers (which, side note, I feel like is the same in BG3 and DnD too). Does PoE have any options to play support roles? It does look fun tho so I might still try it, even if it’s not exactly what I’m looking for.

I was actually playing it and had no idea it was playable in coop. Depending on how well remote play works it could be a good choice. Thanks.

Haven’t really found anything particularly interesting from this year, so I’ve been playing mostly older games: my favorites were probably Trails from Zero/Azure and Chrono Trigger.

Some games I’m mixed on were Final Fantasy XIV and Metaphor ReFantazio. Both of them have parts I really enjoy, but also feel like they never reach the heights they could, both in gameplay and writing.

I’ve replayed Metro 2033 after ~8 years, this time the Redux version. It felt much less atmospheric than what I remembered and a bit too easy (I think I never ran out of ammo and in the end I had around 300 extra military bullets.

I found a used copy of Bravely Default and I’ve been playing that, along with FFXIV where I was planning on starting endwalker but got distracted leveling crafters.

More puzzle platformer with progression in the form of abilities you unlock.

For why I don’t think it’s a metroidvania, it’s because there’s no backtracking when you get a new ability (except for small optional stuff), you start from the center and go to each area in order and the areas themselves are mostly linear.

I played Ori and the Blind Forest which I enjoyed, although I was expecting a metroidvania. The platforming was quite fun and challenging enough and the art looked great.

I played a bit of Moonring, which seems really good, but I’m probably not used to the genre and found it a bit too confusing to continue.

I briefly played Marvel Rivals with a friend, I had fun with it in these first few hours, but I haven’t played hero shooters before so it’s early for me to judge. I’m a bit surprised there’s no restrictions on roles in a party, as most matches seem to have 1 tank and 4 dps and as a healer I can’t figure out how to keep everyone alive alone. Hopefully ranked is more balanced.

Also started playing DnD (5e) with friends. First time, seems fun. I’m playing artificer, planning on specializing to alchemist at lvl 3.

I’ve been continuing Etrian Odyssey, but I’ve gotten a bit stuck on a floor so I’m taking a short break.

With the current Steam sale I got Core Keeper and Blue Revolver, both of which I’m enjoying (although I’ve been mostly playing Core Keeper).

Meanwhile I’ve been playing Balatro, but already gotten a bit bored - I’m not really a fan of how roguelikes are structured.

I’ve also bought a bunch of games during this sale (and have others from the previous one I still haven’t played) which I would like to get to.

I don’t think it’s comparable to those examples as it affects the pacing of the story, instead of being just an abstraction of a system.

In my case it has damaged (and in some cases ruined) my experience of the story or made me skip side content, as I can’t ignore it.