Nioh 2

A bit more Baldurs Gate 3 coop. We just made it to the Githyanki Creche and next time everyone will die.

Then I got back to Vampire Survivors. Played a bunch of different “Survivors-likes”, but nothing really is as good as this. There’s so much stuff I have to catch up on, tons of unlocks and characters.

Finally, I started the Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Palace of Ice DLC. I really liked the more intimate setting of the previous one, Lost Valley, but this one is a straight-up sequel campaign to the base game. So far it’s not as good as Lost Valley, but it’s a higher level campaign up to level 16 (base game is up to 12), you get to play around with the higher level spells (also my ranger can attack one more time now). However, performance in some areas is horrible, with huge frame drops. Also ran into a potentially game breaking but, but luckily a full game restart helped.

I’m watching a streamer play through Cyberpunk right now and it looks really good. I gotta play it myself next year, when I (hopefully) upgrade my GPU.

I finished Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. It’s good but some weird decisions by the devs. For example, you can buy treasure maps at the end, so you don’t need a guide to find everything, just for some reason those maps to not actually show everything. I already mentioned the arbitrary limitation on the pictures you can take last week. Then, the whole game you’re trained to use your parry, normal enemies or bosses, just so some of the later bosses can just spam attacks you can’t parry.

I’m also done with Vampire Hunters. Beat all the stages, unlocked all the characters, but it just doesn’t have a lot of variety. It’s all just “normal” weapons, that shoot forward, nothing really crazy going on. Every level also plays the same, so it gets old relatively quick.

Then I tried HoloCure - Save the Fans!. This (F2P) game isn’t just like Vampire Survivors, it is Vampire Survivors, but with a VTuber skin. Since it’s copying the best in this genre, it’s not bad, but I’d rather just play Vampire Survivors. I’d only recommend this, if you’re a huge fan of VTubers, don’t want or can’t pay for Vampire Survivors, or have put in like a thousand hours into it and just want something a little bit different.

Next is Karate Survivor. Like the name suggests, another VS-like game. This one I’m not so sure about. The theme is 80s Martial Arts Movies, and you’re playing as Jackie Chan from Wish. Instead of weapons, you’re combining different fighting moves into a combo. It sounds neat, but the beginning is pretty rough. You can only run around, and your attacks basically all go forward. Since it’s martial arts, your attacks also have a tiny range, so you’re basically standing inside the enemies, so you can hit them. My first few runs weren’t that fun, but you unlock new moves of course and also some movement-type abilities, like rolling over obstacles or sliding under tables. You can also kick or throw small objects at enemies, like bottles, buckets, etc. or use some objects as weapons, like a broom or baseball bat. These weapons are a bit lame though, since they all have the same attack animation. Later, you can also kick bigger stuff at your enemies, like pallets or motorcycles. Each of these unlocks make the game more fun, but the normal combat, still isn’t my favorite. I’ll stick with it a bit longer, but dunno how long.

Finally, a bit more Baldurs Gate 3 coop. Grymforge is cleared, there were no survivors (except our party). Next is the rest of the Underdark.

More Baldurs Gate 3 in coop with a friend. We’re in the Underdark, gonna kill some Dwarves next time and Gnome and probably everything. We’re just complete murderhobos.

Then I heard about Vampire Hunters, which is kinda Vampire Survivors, but as an FPS. It’s fun and there are a few more maps to beat, but I don’t know if it’s going to have as much staying power as some of these other games I’ve played.

Also, more Metroidvanias. I played through Elderand, and don’t think it’s very good. For some reason, I got lost and didn’t know where to go at some point, which I don’t remember ever happening with another game. It turned out to be a way up some platforms I just missed, but it took a lot of time with me just running around, until I looked at a video playthrough. Even if that’s just a skill issue on my end, some of the other parts, aren’t that good either. The map seems to be a bit inconsistent, which didn’t help finding the correct way. Combat is extremely repetitive, with every melee weapon having the same three-hit combo, even dual-wield daggers or a whip. There’s a crafting system for potions and upgrades, but it’s useless, because basically no materials drop. Definitely do not recommend this one.

I decided to buy Ender Magnolia, the follow-up to Ender Lilies, which is currently in Early Access. There’s not a lot to do right now, it took me a bit under two hours to get through everything, but it’s fun. Definitely wait for the full release though, unless you want to pre-order this game or something.

Finally, I also got Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. It’s much bigger than the other metroidvanias I played recently. I’m almost 20 hours in and about halfway done. It plays well and I gotta say, I really like the feature to take a picture, so you can see where you missed something and don’t just go back 20 times, just to realize you can’t get there yet. Combat against regular enemies can be a bit boring, since enemies are a bit spongy. Bosses are neat though, especially since you have a parry and interrupting boss moves feels great. There’s also a ton of platforming, which can get really tricky. The story is complete garbage and makes no sense, but whatever. The game is kinda expensive, but I got it on sale, which was fine. Since it’s an Ubisoft game, it’s probably going to be on sale for -75% in a few months.

Rant: Why are some of these metroidvanias so stingy with their fast travel? In Prince of Persia and Animal Well you can only travel to specific points of the map, although in Animal Well you could at least get to the teleporters from anywhere on the map. In Prince of Persia, you need to find the teleporter, to get someplace else, which can get really annoying. Just let me travel to and from every save point. Even Elderand, for all its faults, lets you do this. In Prince of Persia, in the DLC area you can actually teleport between save points, probably since they realized the other system sucks.

I love 2D platformers, especially metroidvanias. Some of my favorite ones (not just metroidvanias) are Battleblock Theater, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight and the Ori games.

I also think 3D Platforming sucks, so I try to avoid games, where this is the main gameplay. I’ve played some, like Portal or Grow Home, which I thought were good, but you probably won’t ever catch me playing some 3D collectathons or something.

I watched this video an hour ago and already forgot about the game.

Yes. Apparently there were enough mods like this, that someone made a list to unsubscribe from them:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2749608338

Also, this time it’s the first Cities Skyline, I don’t know of any other games, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Steam has some basic scans, but nothing special. This kind of thing happened before, with mods and even games.

If I understand it correctly from the reddit post, this was a popular mod, that you could get directly in-game, so probably available through the Steam Workshop or something. In that case you assume everything is fine and don’t really check out, if there’s something wrong.

That D4 Halloween event was such a disappointment for me. I did like two Nightmare Dungeons (didn’t even spawn the Butcher), collected the free items, and was done.

Finished HROT. It’s a good game, like I said last week, it’s basically Quake. I started on the Hard difficulty, played through the first episode, but turned it down for the others, because I wanted more run-and-gun and not creeping around corners, because enemies kill me in two shots.

Then I also played through Animal Well. A great looking metroidvania, where you don’t fight, it’s more about avoiding enemies or scaring them away. I saw credits after less than six hours, but then spend another eight searching for secrets. I needed help from a guide for the last couple, to get to the credits the second time, for the second ending. There’s some more stuff to find, maybe a third or true ending, but I don’t really care enough to do that.

I also decided to check out Rain World, but I’m not really sure about this one. For some reason, the game resolution is 768p, which scales with nothing. This means, unless you play on a cheap or old laptop, that uses that resolution, the game will be blurry (or a tiny window). There isn’t even a x2 scaling option or something. Luckily there is a mod fixes this, but it’s still baffling, that this is even needed. Like Animal Well, it’s also a game, where fighting isn’t really the focus (although you can to some extent), but most of the time I was fighting the controls. I’ll give it a bit more time next week, but unless it suddenly clicks with me, I’ll skip this one.

Since I’m in the mood for some metroidvanias right now, I played through another one, Haiku, the Robot. It’s a pretty cookie cutter medroidvania, not bad, but also doesn’t do anything special. You find abilities, like a double jump, short teleport, morphball, stuff like that. There’s also a system like the Charms in Hollow Knight to enhance certain parts of your skill set. I usually like pixel art graphics, but I really didn’t vibe with the enemy design, and everything else is once again pretty basic.

Earlier in the week I started Remnant II with a friend, but the beginning was really rough, so much so, that I don’t know if we’ll continue. The levels and bosses are randomized to some extent, so depending on your luck you might get easier or harder bosses. Our first boss (or event) was pretty terrible. We had to run down a tower, while we were chased by lighting (but also couldn’t be too fast, because of more lightning), and had to shoot some stuff in the middle of the tower, all while enemies spawned. The worst part about this “boss” was that basically everything, except the enemies, was a one-shot death. I was terrible at this and constantly failed, but we eventually made it through. The next couple of bosses were better, but not by much. Who knows if we’ll ever get back to this one.

Then the same friend and me started a coop Baldurs Gate 3 run today. I guess we’re doing an evil run, since he picked Dark Urge and we’re going to raid the grove next time. I played through the game once, around the time of the 1.0 release, and wanted to do an evil playthrough anyway eventually, so this is fine with me.

You probably know this already, but if you don’t get slowed down that much on T3, definitely move up, but if you’re just getting killed too much or don’t kill stuff fast enough, stay on T2. I farmed T3 for a while, even though I had unlocked T4, because I would just get one-shot too much. After some more upgrades and a Mythic Unique, I was finally able to do T4 efficiently.

since for whatever reason ancestral items don’t drop that often for me, and the last thing I have to do is salvage 100 of them. It might have to do with the Torment level I’m on

I’m on Torment 4 and yeah, they don’t drop a lot. If you’re on a high enough difficulty, Ancestral Uniques probably drop more, since you can farm the Uber bosses, who basically only drop uniques. I think that objective was the second to last one I finished for the journey (the last are the 5 Helltide Commanders, which I don’t probably won’t do).

I thought I was done with the latest Diablo 4 season last week, but then I put in a bunch more hours this weekend. While the season and the expansion is generally fun, it feels like the devs took two steps forward and one step back. Progression seems a lot more tedious, compared to before. In earlier seasons, you could basically unlock the highest difficulty really fast and progress pretty quickly to the endgame content. Now, with everything a lot harder and a bunch more difficulty options, you take twice or three times as long, to get to the same point as before. If I didn’t play the Spiritborn, who is completely busted this season, it might’ve taken even longer. I still gotta try the raid, which you can only do coop, although I rarely play with someone else.

Then I started HROT, but have only finished the first level, so I can’t talk about it too much. It seems like it’s basically just Quake with a different skin, I guess? I love the look, and it plays pretty smoothly, so I look forward to playing more of it.

More Diablo 4, after finally getting over my cold. Playing through the campaign was super boring (being sick and miserable didn’t help). All that time is also basically wasted, and you just want it to be over as fast as possible, to actually start progressing your character. Future seasons might be better, since you can skip the campaign, but a bunch of stuff only unlocks after you hit max level anyway, so who knows. The expansion increased the difficulty of the game, added some more difficulty options and did a stat squish, but I don’t think I’m a big fan. Until yesterday, it felt like I was just treading water, not making much progress. Then I managed to unlock Torment 3 difficulty, change my build a bit and get good enough gear, started blasting through enemies, and had more fun. So, while I’m not bored out of my skull anymore, I think I’ll just finish the season journey and battle pass, and then take another break from the game.

Only just started the new Diablo 4 expansion, because I was sick the whole week. I’m still early in the campaign, playing the new Spiritborn.

I got really into TCG Card Shop Simulator. It’s pretty much like all these other “Simulator” games, that pop up in early access every few weeks, like Supermarket Simulator, Recycling Center Simulator and whatever, although the theme is definitely much more appealing to me. The standout feature is probably that you can actually open card packs to collect the gazillion of cards already in the game or sell them as singles. The game is also made with Unity and can use existing mod frameworks, so there are tons of mods out already. You can change the cards to Pokemon, Digimon, and more, along with a bunch of mods to automate the more tedious aspects. I’m at a point right now, where I just need to restock my warehouse every night and can spend the rest of the day sitting in a dank corner and open packs like a degenerate.

The Diablo 4 expansion was supposed to launch a few hours ago, but it got delayed and nobody can play and has to wait.

Good to know. If I get more into Doom an non-official stuff, I might look at those, but for now the batch file will do.

True, how easy it is to get into the games with this port, along with the mod browser, definitely outweighs the few minor issues.

I’ve actually downloaded Woof myself for my Final Doom playthrough. It takes a few minutes to read up on how to create a batch file to make launching the game more user friendly, but once you’re in, it’s has everything you’d want.