Still busy! Spring semester is nearing its final month and I finally got my vaccine! Woo-hoo. But I'm still playing video games! Maybe a little more than March, even.
Mobile Games Played in April
ツイステ (200+ hours)
スタオケ (150+ hours)
Games Played in April
The Binding of Isaac Rebirth - Repentance | 80 hours? ONGOING
Dear | 4.5 hours
十鬼の絆 | 35 hours ONGOING
Curse of the Dead Gods | 5 hours
OVERCURSED | 30 minutes
OVERGAME | 1 hour
MOBS, INC | 2 hours (mindless fun, great for watching streams in the background)
The Cat Lady | 15 hours* (+5)
There is no Game (full version) | 6 hours 15 minutes
Death & Taxes | 6 hours (not complete yet but I don't feel the urge to keep going...)
A Short Hike | 4 hours (Watched the GDC talk on this too!)
Just Shapes & Beats | 22 hours
Superliminal | 4 hours* (+2)
Hexalogic | 6 hours
The Count Lucanor | 8 hours
Tetris 99 (this doesn't count as a "finished" game though)
OneShot | 18 hours
Dude, STOP | 6 hours
Asterisks (*) mean time that I spent playing myself. The (+x) beside it signifies time I didn't play it but watched or experienced it another way. Due to various factors such as the effects of getting the vaccine for COVID-19 I've experienced some really intense game motion sickness recently and had to resort to watching some of the more shaky parts of Superliminal. (That game is trippy af) The Cat Lady also hit too close to home and gave me very bad traumatic nausea and headaches instead, but I really liked the game so I watched it to its conclusion(s) while resisting the urge to vomit. It was really good.
Demos Played in April
Just Shapes & Beats Demo | 2 hours
There is no Game (free Jam edition) | 20 minutes
Monster Boy Norowareta Oukoku Demo | 3 hours
Puddle Knights Demo | 1 hour
Slime-san Demo | 1 hour
Out There Omega: The Alliance Demo | 30 minutes. (Apparently I own it?)
Aerial_Knight's Never Yield Demo | 30 minutes ONGOING
Liberated: Enhanced Edition Demo ONGOING
KINGDOM HEARTS Melody of Memory Demo | 1 hour
Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission Demo | 6 hours ONGOING
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX Demo | 4 hours
Gotta say, the demo game on the Switch is really strong. Monster Boy and Super Dragon Ball Heroes both weren't on my radar at all before I played them but they're both freaking amazing!? Also the music in Super Dragon Ball Heroes is absolutely top notch, I can't believe it. It took me STRAIGHT back to the time when I begged my parents to buy me the first few volumes of Dragon Ball whereupon I devoured them over and over again -- heck they're still in my bookcase right now. Gosh I freaking LOVE Dragon Ball it's so much fun I can't stop grinning when I play the demo. By the way the demo is freaking huge.
Another excellent soundtrack is from Slime-san. It's on a deep sale so I will most likely cave and get it on the eShop but that soundtrack is absolutely a banger.
On the other hand, the Melody of Memory demo was absolutely horrible and completely turned me off from buying the game. Which is really a shame since Theatrhythm Final Fantasy 1 and 2 on the 3DS were both some of my favourite music games on that system, along with Project Mirai DX (the only localized one which I got before learning Japanese). (Haven't gotten around to the Dragon Quest one yet). But Melody of Memory is so bad it doesn't even match the freaking music in the background. The notes are convoluted to attack with your three party members and it just feels really not-accurate... As a reviewer/critic on YouTube has said, it's like Square Enix put absolutely no effort into the game just to try and see how many loyal Kingdom Hearts fans would buy it at a full price tag. (By the way I haven't even beaten KH1 yet on my PS4...)
April 19th Report |
I apologise but I broke the rule for "not buying games" this year... because Nintendo put on the Indie World sale and everything became a Historical Low and I couldn't help it... Sorry. On the upside the games I got were REALLY good and fun. Very bad for schoolwork.
April 23rd Report |
So the remaining games for this month, plus my stacked up games I haven't done from February and March, include the following:
OneShot
Pokémon Moon
Hidden Folks (still in progress) ◀ This one's probably my "on and off" game for therapeutic reasons
Gris
Night in the Woods
Final Fantasy I (in progress since 2018 lol)
Hollow Knight
Yoku's Island Express
Bastion
Out of these, my goal is to finish OneShot by the end of the month. Maybe I'll beat Yoku's Island Express if I have time, I'm close to finishing that game anyway! In the meantime I'll finally edit my Defeat My Backlog page to update it and add the other games to my next month's list.
May 2nd Report |
I did finish OneShot! It was so freakin' good that I cried like a baby. I feel like my tear ducts have gotten weaker to media like video games and movies... But the game will probably stick with me for a really long time.
Otherwise, I've begun Pokémon Chou Fushigi no Dungeon after catching a hunger for Mystery Dungeon games. It's all because I played the demo for Rescue Team DX and got hooked. I hadn't touched my Japanese 3DS since finishing Dai Gyakuten Saiban... And that's getting a remaster on Switch too... To be honest, I think that the 3DS version of the game has its advantages though. The stereoscopic 3D is hilarious when viewing the characters of that game flail around. (Especially Natsume Souseki etc.)
Whoops, that's off-topic. Anyway, Chou Fushigi no Dungeon is my first Japanese Mystery Dungeon game since Gates to Infinity/Magnagate I played way back before I even thought about learning Japanese. I've got to say, this game looks like it would lose a ton of nuance if translated into any other language... But also, the core gameplay loop/dungeon exploring is FUN AS HELL. It's so good. I thought Gates to Infinity was just okay, though it had a great soundtrack, but this game is a lot harder and more "robust". I freaking love it.
But I'm not done hahaha so this will be a carryover game to May. I also hope to finish a bunch of games in the overflow list this month...
Let's talk about a few of these games! Mini-talks. Since I might be making full posts on these.
To speak of games finished this month, Death and Taxes won the "okay" award. I don't know man... The concept is great, the opening is great, but marking Xs on papers just gets sorta boring after a few runs? I don't know if I've absolutely 100%-ed it but I've definitely beat it. And let it beat me a few times. It's definitely not bad, it's just... really slow. There's none of the frantic Papers Please sort of action going on. Man that brings me back. Glory to Arstotzka.
Let's see... As a big music game fan, Just Shapes and Beats was ABSOLUTELY BONKERS. I wish it was a little longer, but since each level is custom made, that's probably impossible. Also I actually played this on a friend's Steam account via family share (?) so I still need to get it for myself one day. Excellent game, with stellar presentation and KILLER soundtracks. (Literally. They kill you hahaha)
There is no Game was surprisingly "deep"...? Anyway it looks like a labour of love so I'm really happy it seems to be successful?? Maybe? I actually played "Dude, Stop." this month too. I don't really get the hype for this genre of minigame games with a really loud narrator going on and on in the background though... This month I watched someone play Rain on Your Parade which is also a minigame game? Like Goose Game. I really don't get it man. I guess it's fun for a while, depending on the age of the player? I will say that There is no Game had some really creative puzzles which made the game completely worth it in my opinion.
Superliminal was a trip. I actually started playing right after my COVID vaccine and got extremely motion sick for some reason, even though I don't usually get motion sickness in games (I do in cars sometimes, though). It got so bad that I had to finish the game second-hand by watching someone else do it so I didn't hurl. I might come back to it later but I've seen all there is to see in the game. It was REALLY cool.
The Count Lucanor is Baroque Decay's first game, and the sort of juxtaposition between cute and pleasant vs. horror was really cool. The horror and stuff hits really quickly but the presentation is amazing. I also got Yuppie Psycho on sale on the eShop (their second game) and eventually want to play it. Yes it was the indie sale that drained my money. No I don't regret it. But I will apologize.
Hexalogic is a creative spin on the Picross-style games and features over 100 levels of increasing difficulty "boards" where you must make the numbers on the board match the indicated numbers by filling in "hexagons" with 1, 2, or 3s. It starts of laughably simple and then gets mind-bending, especially the challenge levels. as a lover of Picross I really enjoyed it and had to 100% it or else I wouldn't be happy with myself. It was great.
After playing A Short Hike I went and watched the GDC talk on it which was super interesting. I've never been the "make games" kind of person but seeing how the game developed was informative and honestly kind of surprising. Games might be the most perfect fusion of creativity and programming I've seen yet.
The Cat Lady was really powerful for me. I will probably be making a full post for that game (and probably some of these other ones) but it hit me the hardest out of this entire month's list.
Okay, next month I will be first finishing Chou Fushigi no Dungeon and then we'll go through the list from there! Gris, Night in the Woods, and Yoku's Island Express are next. I'm excited! And busy!! And it's my birthday this month yaaaay
Thank you for reading this far!
Storm
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