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What I’m Playing

What I’ve Been Playing – Better Late than Never Edition

May 20th, 2023
by Ramen Junkie.
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So I meant to be way more regular on these things but I’ve kind of failed at that. Two reasons mostly, I suppose. One, often I decide I want to do a full write up on something instead of a brief write up in one of these posts. Two, mostly I have just been playing Fortnite.

I actually want to go on a bit of a tangent regarding Fortnite and Sky, Children of the Light, and paid seasonal passes. I posted a series of posts on Sky: CotL recently. I’d been meaning to write them all out for a while, and I did, and I posted them, and… that was just kind of it. I stopped playing. It seems like a really weird place to stop, and I can’t really say I intended it that way or even realized it had happened. The game is coming to PC soon though, so I will definitely go back.

My frustration here, is the Season Pass. And Season/Battle Passes in general. The entire concept is just, a little lame. It could BE perfectly fine, but most are not. For example, with Sky, I decided to log in and I noticed there was a new season, and while it has some really wonderful looking capes and masks, I had already decided I didn’t really care. What I realized was, i had never finished the last pass. I was literally like 99% there too. But I did not pick up the awesome manta spawning lamp. I am pretty sure, it’s never ever coming back either. That’s it. I paid for the pass, I am pretty sure I even had the candles, I just, never logged in to redeem it.

This whole exclusivity thing is kind of really annoying. It’s why I stopped playing Overwatch 2 out of the gate. It’s annoying in Fortnite as well. Like, I can never get Peely, because he was a pass skin. I can’t get Darth Vader, he was a pass skin. Lots of cool skins I come across, end up being pass skins, from before I played.

It’s annoying and Frustrating.

Fortnite

Back on track a bit though, and on Fortnite, I finally picked up Save the World, the single player hoard mode campaign. It’s… kind of a little lame. I can see why it’s not popular. It comes with a bunch of V-Bucks, and eventually I can build some experience grinding endurance run builds, but I kind of regret bothering. You can’t even get the V-Bucks included until you have played for quite a bit to unlock the daily quests. The voice acting and little story bits are fun and funny, the actual game play loop feels a lot like an annoying mobile game and it’s kind of tedious and boring.

Banko Kazooie Grunty’s Revenge (GBA)

I may do a full write up on this game, but I have never played and Banjo Kazooie games, but I really enjoy both Yooka Laylee games from the same studio (more or less). It’s really kind of weird how similar the games are. I’ve compared Yooka Laylee to Donkey Kong Country, but it’s almost a straight reskin of Banjo Kazooie’s world. Anyway, I finished it, 100%. It’s fun.

The Wizard Game That shall Not Be Named

I’ve been a bit torn on this one. I really like Harry Potter, but Rowling is actually kind of shit, and there has been a huge basically, witch hunt campaign against anyone who cares about this game. There is actually a great video that covers the whole thing pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0TwTJCRf58

Don’t worry too much though, the game is decidedly pretty mid tier.

I ended up getting a free copy of this game through a raffle online, so it’s kind of awash, I guess. I get the controversy around everything, personally, the Transgender audience complaining about Rowling is legitimate. The whole “Goblin/Jews” thing, feels a little bit over blown. Goblins, orcs, trolls, etc, have basically always “looked like that”. because it’s a mechanism to make evil characters. If anything, Jewish stereotypes, were also just, designed to look like creepy goblins, less so the other way around. I don’t know, maybe I am way off base there.

I will say though, taking a random female model character, and just, giving them a male voice actor, does not a transgender character make. Maybe there is more to it as the story progresses, I have been mostly exploring the castle, and not really doing the story, so I’m hugely over leveled, but I really doubt it. I am not sure what they could have done, but it just feels, a little forced and awkward.

It should not be real surprising though, there is something weird going on with some of the voice acting in this game in general. Several characters sound like they recorded their lines in an echo chamber or something. My own character also sounds weird, maybe it’s partially my fault? When you create a character, you can adjust the pitch of the voice chosen, higher and lower, and I went on the higher end, which seemed fine in the character creation demo lines, but after going through actual dialogue, she sounds like a weird echo bumblebee. It’s grating enough I have considered seeing if there is a way to hack the save file to choose a different voice pitch.

There is also a lot of oddness to the graphics going on. Maybe this sort of thing is common, I don’t really play too many “AAA” level titles, but there is a lot of weird clipping, at times. Particularly with the cloaks everyone wears, which will randomly flop up on one side, maybe it’s supposed to be wind?

I am also disappointed by the lack of real interaction with your character and the NPC students. A lot fo my comparison here comes from GTA, which is the big daddy of “open world games”. In this game, you can’t say, randomly Leviosa another student. You can barely even bump into them. In GTA, you run through a crowd of people, they all bump around realistically and get kind of offended. In this, they just sort of, do nothing.

I also wish there was more NPC variety in the students. The game has a pretty robust cosmetics system to it, but you’re supposed to be a student, and literally every other student just wears a basic house outfit and robes. So you wearing anything else, feels super weird.

Probably the biggest issue I have had, and this may be explained better later, is your character’s place in the world. You’re like, the most Mary Sue character ever to visit Hogwarts, including the not yet born Harry Potter. You come in as a 5th year student, which feels really odd, but I kind of get that they didn’t want you to start as an 11 year old kid. It feels like Magic is something you would want to start from the beginning with though, screwing up Math by starting school as a 5th grader, isn’t going to turn anyone into a frog. There has been at least one little scene though suggesting there were other students admitted as 5th year students. All of them, including your character, also have access to this Mary Sue Magic (Ancient Magic) which is apparently uncommon. You learn all you spells pretty easily, which is just one more, “Mary Sue moment”. Basically, you are perfect at everything. I get that it’s needed for gameplay, but it feels weird from a story perspective.

Anyway, I actually have been trying to force myself to play more single player titles and just, stuff, besides Fortnite. Like, I had started Death Stranding and Final Fantasy 7R, and then stopped. I want to go back to those, but I have yet to do so. I just end up playing more Fortnite, it’s quick and easy.

What I’ve Been Playing Recently

Mar 1st, 2023
by Ramen Junkie.
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I came up with a good “post series” name the other day but like a dumb-ass, I didn’t write it down anywhere so I’ve forgotten it. Let this be a lesson to the younger folks out there, you can’t rely on your memory forever, it eventually becomes filled with nonsense like the names of Mario Brothers monsters from 40 years ago.

I use all sorts of reminder notifications and note taking methods in my daily life, but that sort of topic is much more apt for Blogging Intensifies than here. Here, I want to just talk about video games, sometimes. I keep swearing that I write up one of these since fucking January, but apparently not, so here I am. Just ANOTHER thing with becoming a forgetful old man. I guess that’s part of why I like to blog about this sort of thing as well. Because sometimes I forget what I already played 10 years ago.

Wario Land 2

I really did sort of, break the experience playing this series backwards. Wario Land 2 has a lot of elements that showed up in it’s sequel, Wario Land 3. Though a lot less of what was in Wario Land 1, which honestly, feels a lot more like it’s a sequel to Super Mario Land 2 than anything else. Now, I may have been completely missing something here, for example, I found the Select button isn’t mapped right on my Retroid so that results in some oddness, but Wario Land 2, does not seem to have any sort of Overworld Map. You just travel through, level by level. Which is kind of weird because it actually needs the ability to replay levels more than any other title in this series. Each level has at least 2 mini game things that when you fail them, you fail, and that’s it. You’re not completing those bonus items now buddy.

It’s weird, and I am pretty sure I am just missing something somewhere. It’s not a big deal, I really was not going for completion, just finishing the game and beating the final boss.

At this point, I am inclined to say Wario Land 3 is the best title in the series.

Castlevania Adventure Rebirth

I’ve played all or close to all of the “Symphony of the Night” style later Castlevania Games. Not so much the earlier titles. I actually really hate the earlier “standard levels” titles. Primarily because they are all extremely difficult and full of cheap shots.

Fortunately, I can use save states in emulation, which removes that headache.

Castlevania Adventure Rebirth is part of a small sort of series of games by Konami where they remastered some of their older games for the WiiWare line up. I have tried to also play the Blaster Master Rebirth game but it gets hung up on the controls as well. Emulating Wii titles has been really dodgy.

On the game itself, it’s actually pretty neat, though there is a lot of kind of weird choices and puzzles. There are some branching paths as well that I’m not sure were int he original Game Boy version of Castlevania Adventure game, I suspect not. I enjoyed this game, though would have enjoyed it less without save states to keep me going during the tougher parts.

Side note, the resolution for this game is atrocious. I have to assume it’s a Wii thing, because the screen shots from others that I saw online, are just as awful.

Super Castlevania IV

I hate the name of this game, because it just breaks any sort of sorting. It’s just Castlevania IV as far as I care, though I think it’s technically like the 7th or 8th Castlevania title.

This is one I’ve been kind of wanting to get to for a while, but just, never did. The only real thing I remember about it’s release is that it was one of the titles that Nintendo used to really push the whole “Mode 7” thing on the SNES and it had this crazy amazing (at the time time) whip mechanic.

Specifically, the way you could hold out the whip and flip it around with the controller, and use it to swing.

The game itself also really comes off as a bit of an advertisement for “Mode 7”. There is a (single) rotating room (OMG THE ROOM IS ROTATING!), and a single hallway through a tunnel where the background rotates “around” you (also pretty new at the time). Also the giant swinging Chandeliers, which I assume must have been super taxing on the hardware because the background int hat screen is completely blank.

Super Star Trek

It’s worth mentioning this little classic gem. I played two modern remakes of it, both I think by the same person, but it’s an old school BASIC game, originally run as text only. It appeared in the book BASIC Computer Programs, which I actually have or had a copy of somewhere. I always wanted to type it up and try it, but never did, thankfully, others have, so it’s available in the original format, or some nice updated graphic versions.

The premise is simple, you have so many days (turns) to defeat Klingons throughout the area. You can scan the nearby sectors, warp around, then in combat, fire phasers or torpedoes. You also need to manage the ships’ energy and damage. It’s quite easy to die unexpectedly actually. Space is a dangerous place.

It’s really crazy just how compelling this fairly simple gameplay loop is. It does feel like being a Starfleet Ship Captain, minus the parts that are not shooting things. It’s all very elegantly complex while still being simple enough to easily get. It’s a really good game design.

What I’ve Been Playing Recently

Jan 28th, 2023
by Ramen Junkie.
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It’s been a bit, so it’s been a bit busy I suppose. I’m going to mostly push off my current “regular games” a bit with Fortnite and Sky. just for some discussion about what else I’ve been playing.

Death Stranding

Funny enough, this isn’t the only game I’m playing at the moment with “dangerous rain”. Sky has a zone of rain that harms you when you’re standing in it. Though, they call it “Time Fall” in Death Stranding, and it’s a Hideo Kojima game, so it’s full of weird unexplained shit that may or may not eventually be explained.

The core gameplay is nothing like I expected. You’re in this weird dystopian future with rain that makes you grow old if it touches you, and dead bodies explode or something within a few days of dying and then turn into these weird invisible monster things that only show up when it rains and then there is this baby in a bottle for some reason. And so far all of the game play has been, “Deliver things on foot by walking through the wilderness.” Like no joke, there is a balance mechanic to weight distribution that has TWO dedicated buttons on the controller.

I really just, don’t know. But it looks pretty. Also I am told that eventually you can make grenades or something from your poops!

Bayonetta

Speaking of weird but highly acclaimed games. I also picked up Bayonetta. I’m… not sure I have the patience for this style of weird anymore. The gameplay is kind of button mashy and the plot is full of “ZaNy AnImE” style shit. Like the intro scenario has this dude just throwing guns at your character going “guns guns guns” and it’s just like, too much odd for the sake of oddness.

Like Death Stranding is weird, but I feel like eventually most of it will eventually be mostly explained by some sci-fi related world building. Bayonetta is just over the top for the sake of being over the top.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

I’ve been playing a lot of random stuff on the Retroid lately but I’m going to stick with what I played significantly. I’ve beaten Mario Land 2 a several times, but decided to play through it again, which took like 2 hours, maybe. And I beat it again.

The biggest stand out is just how many unique enemies are in this series. Plus it’s weird how much the recent LEGO Mario sets seem to be designed entirely around one world in this universe. The LEGO Mario looks kind of like the Mario Zone robot and the Mario Zone itself even includes a LEGO like level.

Wario Land 4

After defeating Wario in Mario Land 2, I realized I had never really played any of the stand alone Wario Land games. So I loaded them up to play through. I’m not sure why I started at the end in Wario Land 4 but I did. I think mostly because it’s a slightly more polished GBA title, so it was more appealing.

I also completed it. It’s not a very lengthy game. The levels also feel like they are intended to be played repeatedly, but most of them are pretty linear despite the interweaving/multiple paths of them (Wario Land 3 is quite literally the opposite).

Also apparently Wario has his own princess now too.

F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch

I could have sworn I had wrapped this one up in a post. I mentioned FIST Last time, and I have since completed it. I also finished it 100%, which wasn’t actually that hard to do. The last few bosses are really really rough though the second to last boss, the big sumo pig, is a lot more difficult than the actual end boss.

The most amusing thing about this game, a lot of the plot revolves around this super powered crystal, “The Spark”. It’s weird though because there are at least two of these things, and more importantly, you fight three enemies powered by this “ultimate force”. The first is a rock monster empowered by it to retrieve it. Then later you get betrayed and have to fight a dude in power armor powered by the Spark, which destroys it, then SURPRISE there is another one, which you retrieve but it’s stolen then you get to fight the end boss, powered by The Spark.

It doesn’t really feel all that impressive honestly. I kind of defeated “The Power of the Spark” repeatedly. Not that impressive.

What I’ve Been Playing Recently

Jan 5th, 2023
by Ramen Junkie.
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I wonder if those titles should be more distinct or if it even matters. Anyway, I “completed” one game this week. Actually I sort of “beat” two games, but I forget how I have counted the Fortnite Battle Passes. Let’s call it one for now. The Fortnite BP technically goes to Level 200.

F.I.S.T: Forged In Shadow Torch

Man, that acronym. Someone really wanted it to stand for FIST. This was one of the free games from Epic over the Holidays that they push every year. It looked interesting from the animal characters and Steampunkish design then I noticed it’s a Metroidvania title, which is probably my favorite game genre. So I decided to jump on playing it. You play as a sort of, grizzled ex soldier rabbit, armed with a giant robotic FIST from his old war days mech. The game play is pretty smooth and it’s definitely a Metroidvania style title.

My main gripe so far is the slight unevenness of the enemies. Most of the bosses I have encountered are super predictable and almost too easy. Dodge Dodge Dodge Strike. It’s a pretty regular pattern for all of them so far. One large biped mech was particularly easy to confuse because it didn’t move and you could just jump from it’s left to it’s right, meaning it would miss miss miss, then turn around, so you move again, and repeat. But the regular enemies, are often tougher than the bosses, and feel like they have just as much health. There is also this really annoying bit where you can stun them out of an attack animation, but not ALL attacks, and often you can’t stop your slightly sluggish attacking, until it’s too late to dodge away. And the enemies often have huge attack arcs. If that makes any sense.

It’s not awful, but it’s annoying, especially with packs of enemies. The game feels like you should be able to “juggle” the enemies, but you really can’t. It’s particularly bad with the samurai looking dudes and worse with the axe throwing shield guys. The game is still fun, but it feels like it could use a slight bit of tweaking to it’s regular enemies and maybe a slight beefing up on the actual bosses.

Fortnite

I finished the main part of the Chapter 4 Season 1 Battle Pass. Which means reaching level 100. The game is honestly, starting to feel like a chore. I’ll keep at it for now, but at this moment, I have no desire to continue to Season 2 unless things seem really good. There have been a LOT of complaints about the new weekly quest system. They expire now, instead of just stacking until the end of the season, and they are almost always incredibly grindy. Like, “you must do ONLY THIS all week” to complete the top tier. The map also was neat at first but it’s gotten really stale. It also hasn’t really changed at all. It felt like in Chapter 3 the map was constantly changing every week or so. The weapons pool also has not really changed.

Sky: Children of the Light

Now that the Season of Aurora has ended and I’m not worried about maximizing my Candles each week, I decided to just go for it at take a swing at The Eye of Eden, the end zone of this game. man, you want a game that is bipolar on its own game play. I kind of want to do a separate write up of Sky, so I won’t go into a ton of detail, but let’s just sat this. The base game play loop is about as non confrontational as it gets. You mostly just, fly around lighting candles and collecting wax balls and occasionally doing little spirit stories. The final zone, is literally an endurance until you die.

Your health is represented by these Winged Light bits that you collect, which strengthen your overall ability to fly and explore. I was up to I think 76 before entering Eden, which is pretty close to max on regular basic Winged Lights. The first zone is a slow climb up some cliffs through winds and rock storms. The second zone is stronger wings and bigger rocks, but now there are Krill dragons patrolling around. The third zone is where the action is, it loses the dragons, but instead there is a constant barrage of lava rocks splattering all over the zone that will basically one shot you destroying some of your Winged Light. You can hide behind some rocks, but for the most part, you have to run around the zone depositing your Winged lights into these little statues to save them. You give up your health, to save these other entities.

You do this, until you die.

And then you get reborn at zero. Though for each spirit saved you get some special candles to use to buy some more permanent Winged Lights. It’s not 1:1 though. I earned I think 13 Ascended Candles. I restarted the game at around 8 Winged Lights I think.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

I still jump around a bit on the Retroid Pocket but for now I have settled on playing the first Klonoa game on Playstation 1. I am not sure how far I am, maybe halfway? The game reminds me of the style of Donkey Kong Country, but not nearly as fast paced. It’s a neat little game, though I’m not entirely sure of the ins and outs of some of it. Like occasionally there are clock items to pick up, but from what I can tell, the game has no timer. I’m not too concerned, I am not trying to master this one.

What I’ve Been Playing Recently

Dec 12th, 2022
by Ramen Junkie.
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# What I’ve Been Playing Recently

I like the idea of this sort of regular, generic post, but I don’t really want to give it a schedule, so I’m just going to throw em out whenever, for now, I think.  Considering this si the “first” one, it’s also not clear what “Recently” should mean in this context.  It’s my post, my blog, my rules, so I’m thinking, whatever I want to mention really.

Fortnite

Roughly a year ago, I decided I wanted to give Fortnite a go.  It’s been popular for years, and i was looking for something relatively mindless to play as a filler game to fill the void left by Overwatch.  So I decided to try Fortnite.  I had no idea what I was doing, though I managed to win my first match, which felt really cool, until (much later) I learned that all the matches for the first ten levels or so are against Bots.  It was Christmas season, so I got a few free cosmetic items, and I even enjoyed it enough to buy a few skins.  i also opted to go for the Battle Pass, which I completed to level 200.

I’ve taken a few breaks, but I’m still playing a year later now.  Chapter 4 just started, which means a fresh new map to play on.  i am pretty sure the new map is a lot smaller than the last one.  Honestly, in general, it feels like Epic really wanted to try to break people out of the “Run around and hide” all match mindset.  Everything is righter and faster and you’re forced into more encounters.  I’m not sure I like it honestly.  I usually moved around the map a lot, but I also generally would avoid conflicts.  I’ve actually been playing a lot of Bot Matches just so the games are more chill and less stressful.

Something that’s a bit annoying, I actually kind of prefer playing random, NON Battle Royale maps and modes.  I played a TON of their Among Us Clone, in the Imposters Mode.  Though that got old because groups, completely break that mode.  Groups will just tattle on who the Imposter is to their friends.  I also do a lot of “Death-run” Obstacle course maps, though there are a lot of these that feel really uninspired these days.  Probably my favorite are the Musical Soundwave Series events.

Sky Children of the Light

This one is a super chill “Relaxing” movile game, though it recently came to Switch and Playstation.  It’s made by the same folks who made Journey and definitely FEELS a lot like Journey.  You float around this world collecting candle wax and meeting people and doing little Spirit Quests.  There is only one zone in the entire game where you can be harmed, outside of The End zone.  I have not been able to bring myself to attempt The End yet.  I hear it’s really hard, plus you lose everything, by default, and start over, after completing the game.

Currently they are having an event themed around the singer Aurora, which was part of why I started playing the game in the first place.

Retroid Pocket

I want to do a proper write up on my Retroid eventually, but I’ve been playing old games on this as well.  Nothing in particular yet, I’m still kind of in the “Mess around and see what it can do” phase.  Mostly I’ve been playing Genesis and PlayStation Titles, with a few PC Engine games thrown in.  I am trying REALLY hard not to fall into my usual Emulation Trap of just playing Zelda and Mario…. again… for the ten thousandth time.

Overwatch 2

File this one under what I’m NOT Playing.  I got so tired of Overwatch and it’s unbalanced mess.  I quit a year or so ago and every attempt to come back failed within days or hours of every reinstall.  I came back more hardcore for the end of Overwatch 1, hopeful that Overwatch 2 would be a fresh, new beginning.  I even bought the Battle Pass.  Oh boy I was disappointed.  I expected nothing and it was worse.  Every single match, almost without fail, is a complete steamroll win or loss, and neither is fun.  Experience is a slow pain int he ass as well, I gave up on the Battle Pass around level 50 I think.  I was not having fun and I didn’t want to grind out 30 more levels.  I don’t even care about winning, I just want the game to feel enjoyable  I never win in Fortnite and I always enjoy playing.  Overwatch should be like that.  

It should be fun!