Happy New Year everyone!
How were your holidays? And how is your new year starting? Any resolutions for this year?
My gaming resolution for last year was to play through some of the oldest games in my wishlist, specially smaller indies and JRPGs. Cleared (completed or dropped) some 42 games last year, so that was a big success.
For this year, I plan to catch up on all first party Nintendo games (the ones that are on Switch). I am generally a patient-gamer, but I make exceptions for Nintendo games, even then, I have many games that I missed, like Astral Chain, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Captain Toad Treasure Tracker to name a few. Other than that, also want to catch up to latest installment of the some series I am playing, like Yakuza or Ys.
So, what I played over last two weeks:
I got stuck at the second dragon boss in Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout, and after looking it up online, it seems I was rushing through the story and should slow down and work on alchemy, as there are quite a few things that I should have at this point that I don’t. So, putting it on backburner for a bit, will just play it slowly as a cozy game.
Started Astral Chain, always meant to play it finally getting around it. The game is really fun. Love the urban environment and the fast paced combat. I have unlocked all but one legions, and am probably somewhere around halfway through. This is currently my primary game. Will probably finish it over the weekend or the next week. Let’s see.
Over at PS side, started and finished Yakuza 6: Song of Life. I played Yakuza 0 last year (23), and was originally planning to replay 1-5, but then just gave up on that and watched a recap to refresh my memory, and started 6 directly.
What a game! This was probably my favourite story in the whole series (yet), though I played older games a long time ago, so it could be some recency bias, but even then, great story and character development! Combat was a bit simplistic from older entries as there’s only one combat style this time around, other than 3 in some of the previous one. I enjoyed it though, and won’t mind if they keep it like this.
Tried Saints Row, the new one, it was one of the free monthly game for PS+ Essential a few months back. Dropped it soon enough though. I had very low expectations so was enjoying the game in the start, but the combat is pretty meh, failed a mission few times because of this and just gave up.
Started Nier Replicant , love the fast paced combat, and the world building, but the fetch quests are too much. I am trying to do most of them, but some of them require some rare items which are not easy to come by, so not completing all of them.
Still on my first play through, just started the second part. This is my secondary game, for when I don’t have access to Switch.
Epic gave away Vampire Survivors, so downloaded it when I was a bit bored and Switch was busy. Playing it a bit here and there, unlocking stuff. Really enjoyed it when I unlocked weapon synergies, makes you almost invincible. Just going to play a run or two when I get time, nothing serious though.
Phew! That was a long post. I didn’t realise I played that much. Until I wrote all this down, I was under the impression that I didn’t really play much over the holidays.
So, what about all you? What have you been playing?
I finished Echoes of Wisdom, with completion of pretty much every side content, except I forgot to cross-reference my list of echoes with a complete list. I don’t think I missed anything, but who knows? My final verdict is neither positive nor negative, just a resounding ‘meh’. I’m always glad when they try something new, but I don’t think open world works for a 2D Zelda. A game with a top-down perspective needs more barriers or the map just becomes a square. Height just isn’t as much of a factor compared to a 3D environment.
spoiler
I wish the final dungeon actually let you play as both Zelda and Link, solving puzzles together. I was kinda bummed out Link is entirely AI-controlled.
In its place, I have started Mario and Luigi: Brothership! I was very worried about the game, since I generally don’t like it when an RPG segments its world too much. It’s been a long time since I played Partners in Time, but I remember that one being very guilty of that, where each segment felt like a ‘level’ instead of a piece of a larger world. But I’m actually very happy with Brothership so far, it’s cohesive! I’m trying to knock out the ‘Beat 300 enemies without any equipment’ challenge early and I’m getting so used to it, that I worry the game will feel too easy once my plumbers wear ties, so to speak.
I made a lot more progress in Lightning Returns. I’m past Day 7 now, which means all enemies are starting to grow stronger over time. I ran into a superboss in the Dead Dunes at some point… I didn’t know an enemy like that would just roam around like that! I got scared thinking this is what Day 7 Plus was going to be!
I did say I was going to do a second playthrough of the game to cover all side quests, but as it turns out, I have almost all of them finished already. When the game said you don’t have enough time to save everyone, they must have been lying. The 13 days you get are plenty. I might not be able to do the quest that asks you to exterminate every single enemy in the world though, but I’ll definitely try!
While I really enjoyed Echoes of Wisdom, I agree with you assessment, as well as the spoilery part.
That’s great to hear about Brothership, I am looking forward to playing it, just want to play couple of other games before that.
Good luck with Lightning Returns!