Whatcha playing?
I slowed down a bit on shadow of the erdtree, but still working through it. I have every remembrance except the last one. I also started the riven remake and just finished getting all achievements last night. 10/10 remake. It’s really good!
Since I finished erdtree I jumped into DMC5. Combat feels so awkward in this game and it’s so clear the control schemes are from ages ago. It’s had me thinking about whether I want to just pick up another game on my list like BG3 or cyberpunk 2077 and finally play through it, or if I want to just start a new character or re-do the erdtree DLC (made a copy of my SL110 char before beginning DLC) so I can do all the new content properly. Still slowly working my way thru DMC5 but I’m like 7 missions in and while it’s getting better as I unlock skills it just doesn’t feel smooth.
I played the hell out of the first DMC back in the day. Just over and over again, even on Dante Must Die and I almost never do hard modes. Apparently I really liked the relatively toned-down gameplay and setting, and the RE-inspired tone, because I never really enjoyed 2-4 the same way (2 goes without saying).
I largely ignored the series but spontaneously got the interest to play 5 a year or two ago. I did beat it, but it did not do anything for me. I was very glad to be done with it.
Slowly coming to the end of Pacific Drive, which has been mostly great. I think I’ll wrap it up at the perfect time, because I’m not quite tired of it but can feel my interest beginning to wane.
I have also been playing Sea of Stars. I had one foot fully over the edge to give it up during its painfully slow opening, but I just barely made it long enough to get through the first dungeon and found myself beginning to admit that it was becoming fun. I can’t remember the last time my feelings for a game pivoted so hard, because once it opens up it is a ton of fun. I’m glad I was able to stick with it.
I watched a friend play Sea of Stars and really enjoyed it! I hope it’s a good adventure for you the rest of the way.
Something to note if you’re in it for combat, the difficulty plateaus a bit towards the middle/end. And if you like this one, their other game, The Messenger, is tied to it lore wise, although it’s a different genre.
Also the music slaps.
I think I single-handedly funded a complete overhaul of the Kantonian Safari Zone just to get Scyther in Pokemon Red.
I lost count of how many times I reset to actually catch Chansey. “You missed the Pokemon! Chansey fled!” over and over again, when I actually got one of them to spawn!
Then it was flying all over, since I had the Good and Super rods, finally, to do all of the fishing. Now it’s leveling up some of my catches while pushing through Saffron so I can grab Lapras, snag Hitmonlee from the dojo, get everyone evolved and caught up, and then finally take down Koga.
I decided to try Zenless Zone Zero. I’m already a Honkai Star Rail player and I used to play Genshin Impact, although I gave up Genshin because I was irritated with how they handle story and characters. I originally wasn’t going to try ZZZ, but thought it wouldn’t hurt anything. Worst case scenario, I drop it and go back to solely playing HSR.
I’m really enjoying ZZZ’s combat, even if I don’t feel like I’m doing it “right” or optimally yet. The story is nice so far, I love the Persona vibes it gives me, especially Persona 4. Wasn’t expecting that. I got the guaranteed S rank character I wanted (Lycaon!) and I’m skipping the first limited character because… I really don’t like the maid outfit thing. It wasn’t for me on Noelle in Genshin, and it’s not for me here. I love her design otherwise and she’s a shark girl with a shark tail, which is super neat. She has a casual outfit I like a lot. Just. Cannot. Do. The. Maid. Thing.
I might pull on the second half banner. But I haven’t met the character yet so I have no idea if I want her either. It’s a bit frustrating waiting, because my teams are kinda a mess due to lack of characters. But it’s okay. The story comes first and that has my interest so far.
Leveled a few more characters in World of Warcraft. Since I’ve been basically just playing Horde for over 15 years, with only a few exceptions here and there, I’m now basically filling out my character roster with their Alliance counterparts. Since more and more stuff is cross-faction nowadays, this doesn’t really matter too much anymore, but it still gives me an excuse to level new characters with the objectively best race, dwarves.
I bought a few smaller games in the Steam sale, first RollScape. It’s a puzzle game where you roll a die to put down tiles, which give you points, and you try to get as much as possible. Modifiers increase this exponentially, so you just get more and more. It was alright for a couple of hours, but also a bit too boring and frustrating at times.
Then God of Weapons, which is basically Brotato, except you get to play Inventory-Tetris between rounds to manage your items. The inventory system is a neat gimmick, but otherwise the game doesn’t really a lot of new things. Runs can also be a bit too long for my tastes, with half of the time spent swapping items in and out, trying to fit some weird shaped item into your inventory.
I’ve only just started Slime 3K: Rise against Despot, another Vampire Survivors-like, but it’s not making a good impression so far. The game looks great, I love the pixelart design of the slime, but right now, the gameplay isn’t really doing it for me. It’s mainly the weapons, they just feel super weak and not really impactful in any way. In this game, leveling up spawns a vending machine, which you can collect and then get to buy items. These items come from a deck, that you can modify between runs, so can remove stuff you don’t like or if you want to focus on specific types items, i.e. just guns or summoning. I’ll give it a bit more time, maybe some later unlocks improve things.
Lastly is Powerwash Simulator. Seems like just a fun, brain-off type game, where I can blast dirt off of stuff, while watching streams on the side. Except that Lichen can bite me. Bullshit, basically invisible, but still count as dirty. Screw you. (Edit: Didn’t know about that button to highlight dirt, which makes it much more manageable).
