I can’t believe it, but I finally advanced the main storyline in Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent! Two chapters left until the final final boss. The announced release of Octopath Traveler 0 with a retelling of COTC’s story kinda lit a fire under me. I took my squad that I’ve been powering up for two years and slowly wiped the floor with the chapter boss. I’ve been playing RPGs long enough that I wasn’t surprised when the boss stood up from the defeat, story-mode crushed my visiting party member, and got away. I was a little surprised at the interesting turn the story took from there. I’ve got a lot of grading to do for school, but I’m thinking I’ll spend a lot more time on the couch on my phone this weekend.

Thursday I attended a board game night at a local board game cafe. A teacher in the county where I live had messaged me on BoardGameGeek and invited me out. It was a blast! It’s so great to meet new gamers. We played Ethnos, FlIp 7, and Love Letter. I got home way too late, so next time, I’m starting earlier and ending earlier.

I bought the newest edition of The Crew, the cooperative card game I’ve talked about here before. It’s called the Crew: Family Adventure. Instead of having gameplay like Hearts or Spades, it has gameplay like Uno. Each mission tells the story of youth athletes who find themselves stranded on an island in the south seas. After an interminable tutorial via the Kosmos Helper App, my children and I played two hands. Already I can say I prefer the original, but it is fast-moving and fun, so I look forward to playing some more.

Finished Guacamelee! 2!

Didn’t enjoy this one as much as the predecessor, mainly due to final 1/3 or so the game. It felt like the developers decided the game needed to be harder but didn’t really know what to do, so they just amped up one of the worst parts of the previous game - insta-kills by touching spikes or lava.

Seriously, I think 90% of my deaths were due to this and it gets really frustrating, to the point that I decided to skip optional content and just rush to the final boss to get it done.

It’s a shame because the rest of the game was solid, I liked how they made better use of the “chicken” form and also how the maps were better designed and with far less backtracking.

Playing Witch on the Holy Night!

Slow progress this week, finished Chapter 1.5 (“Seven Days of Spinning”), which is optional but a very interesting read. The segment that focuses on Alice hunting monsters was particularly awesome, being the first “break” from slice-of-life into supernatural and leaving a strong impression.

Now reading Chapter 2 (“Little Happening of Last Night”).

Playing CrossCode!

Current side-game, an indie action RPG I bought at a sale a while back. Only played 2h or so but the first impression is really good, mixing puzzle sections that remind me of older games like Wild Arms with fast-paced combat.

Ace Attorney Investigations - Miles Edgeworth. I might go back to the main series, because it is just not as fun without the courtroom drama.

I have finished Bananza! At least the main game, there’s post game stuff to do now. It’s a shame I had an important endgame element spoiled for me, but it was still pretty awesome. One thing I’ve been meaning to mention but always forgot is Cranky… why does he say the same thing in every world? What an absolute waste of an iconic character! But anyway, I need to talk about the end:

Anyway, with all that said, I do think Odyssey is the better game, but Bananza is definitely more important to me, personally!

I also played a little more of Yakuza 3. Apparently some side quests only give you one chance to do them. Failure is basically an alternate, disappointing ending to them. I came into this game expecting to like it less than the newer, previous games (which sounds so oxymoronic when you don’t know the series), but my list of complaints just keeps growing. I don’t see myself trying too hard to complete most things in this game.

I also started playing The Witness. It’s interesting and very good at teaching you how to solve its puzzles without explaining anything, but I’m worried I’ll start seeing line-puzzles in the real world soon. It seems like that kind of game…

I took a break from Cyberpunk 2077, it’s super fun but I have a massive backlog 😬 It feels like I’ll be playing it for a long time anyway.

The announcement for the new SpongeBob Squarepants game made me go back to SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated on the Switch. It’s probably not too long so I think I’ll finish it soon. It’s really fun if you like the show, and a classic 3D platformer. It’s a shame that Titans of the Tide, the new game, is going to be a Game Key Card, so I won’t be getting that one.

I also played through the whole demo for Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. For some reason I had high expectations for the graphics, but they didn’t shock me or anything and there were some frame drops with many enemies on screen. Graphics were still good, and the mechs look great. Playing it reminded me of playing Xenoblades Chronicles X, probably just because of the mechs, I played that years ago on the Wii U.

It’s a fun game, but there’s a lot of information coming your way during the demo, lots of systems you need to learn about, which I probably won’t remember when I play it again. I might get the full game some time in the future, but probably not on release date. They got the driving figured better than Cyberpunk, and the photo mode seems like it’s the same? Is this a common system for AAA games or something? I found it curious. Anyway, I’d recommend the demo because it’s a fun game.

I started playing Breath of the Wild recently. I haven’t played a Zelda game in 20 years - the last one I played was Minish Cap back in 2005. I’m enjoying the open-world aspect of it. I’ll be playing it for a while - I have maybe an hour per night, a few nights per week, to play games so it takes me quite a while to complete anything.