I’ve been playing through the spyro remakes. I’m half way through the first game and honestly it’s fun just running around collecting things, but man the platforming is excruciating at times. It can feel really shitty when the only way to see if you can reach a platform is to die trying
Love the remake trilogy. Still have to go get all the achievements for the second and third game. Now that there is a new Spyro game in development I can finally finish these ones. I was really savoring them because I’d never thought we’d see Spyro again.
So I have been into chill games lately. I found this Stardew Valley upgrade called Fields of Mistral, so now am I playing that.
It’s Stardew Valley, but better. Most of the QoL mods (maybe 95%) that I usually add for Stardew are already part of Mistral.
In Stardew, there was a lot of waiting. Example upgrading your tools took days, and you could only do one at a time. The combat was also not fun, just annoying. It was mostly spam-clicking, and you had to make sure your aiming was right and I felt forced to do the museum to be able to progress.
In Mistral, you actually fight monsters in a specific way depending on monster and version of that monster (if you want to be effective). You can also craft all your stuff yourself (or buy it if you don’t want to) as long as you have the level and the materials. There is also character progression that makes your life easier for example for crafting can you unlock to remove x min from time cost. And for fighting you can unlock crit hits, as two examples there are a loooot more to unlock.
You can jump and swim, so shortcuts are a thing.
I also like the main quests more. It feels more involving with the people and the world. I don’t feel the constant stress of when and how I need to do things to optimize my time or even unsure what to spend my time on. There is no waiting and the museum is not forced progression that has to be done to actually unlock parts of the game instead there is a main quest and it isn’t locking you away in the same way. But time will tell. Side quest is a fun way to get some easy money and some lore.
I haven’t played enough to say anything of the main story yet. So far, it seems good, and it might be better from a game perspective than stardew because it gives you an actual purpose and a clear goal that you can ignore for as long as you want. Plus the magic part of the story doesn’t feel so out of place as it did in stardew. The ppl seems happier, unsure as of yet but noone seem depressed (many were pretty unhappy in stardew) so the mood is a bit different, it isn’t a bad or good thing, just different way to tell a story, there are hints of deeper character progression tho, I just haven’t focused on leveling up their affection for me, stardew showed pretty quickly how unhappy ppl were and how they cope with life.
The characters feel very integrated. Everyone has their quirky side (in a good way). They hang out with each other, but some more than others. It feels like they like being together, and there are a lot of get-togethers, which makes it fun to get to know them through how they interact.
Their conversations with you feel contextual. If you first talk to them in town (and there isn’t an ongoing event), they can mention things you’ve done, like filling the museum with something they like. If you talk to them again in the inn, they can talk about the upcoming game night, or even do group conversation with others there about how fun last night was.
So if you like Stardew, try Fields of Mistral. So far will I be picking Mistral over Stardew (I have 200+ hours in that game). Main reasons are that the gameplay is more fun and the character interactions are much better. But maybe also because it is new.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
TLDR: I am playing Fields of Mistral which is a Stardew Valley upgrade (in my opinion)
Still playing Mary Skelter Finale. I’m betting it’s close to the previous games, 70+ hours for the true ending and most of the optionals.
After a brief pause from gaming, I’ve been playing a lot Hollow Knight recently, though I also want to jump back into Persona 3 Reloaded (as I progressed most in that before being tempted to HK by my partner). Both run super well on the steam deck, and it’s fun to hook up to the tv and use the steam controller; the pick up and pause nature of the steam deck is awesome.
I finally got around to Animal Well. I went in blind, and I’d highly recommend anyone else interested do the same. Don’t read anymore if you don’t want gameplay spoilers.
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I thought it was a fantastic puzzle platformer up to a point. It does a very good job of hinting at what you need to do rather than outright telling you. I thought it was perfectly balanced right up to the first time you see the credits roll.
I probably should have stopped at that point because much of the post-game content (of which there is a lot) just got too obtuse. We’re taking La Mulana levels of insanity. I ended up using a guide to get all the eggs, and I decided to not even bother with a whole bunch of other stuff.
There is an abyssal depth of content here for anyone who wants to make a 2D puzzle platformer their lifestyle for a significant duration. Keep in mind I guess there are some puzzles that are even unsolvable on your own and were only deciphered by a community effort.
Whatever your thoughts, there is no denying this game is an achievement.
Assassins Creed Blag Flag
With all the talk because of the remake I decided to play the 360 version on my Series S. It’s been in my library for years but I’ve never played an AC game past the first hour of AC1… and it’s been great so far. I’m currently on the 1st island after “borrowing” a ship and sorting out a crew.
i’ve started and not finished so many games this yearI finished Cronos yesterday:
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I chose to spare the Pathfinder, so I got ending B. I watched the other 2 endings on YouTube and I have to say, I feel the story left me hanging, many things went unexplained. I know they want to make a franchise out of it, but seeing how the DLC is going to be more action-oriented, we’ll see how it goes.
Overall I’d give it an 8 or 8.5, I didn’t find the ending satisfactory.
I played more Alan Wake 2:
I had to lower some settings to medium for it to not crap the bed constantly. It still looks good. Also, Optiscaler was defaulting the upscaler to XESS instead of FSR4, that’s why it looked kinda blurry to me before. Now it looks great as long as it stays on native, even on quality it gives me some upscaling artifacts on things like hair or telephone cords. It’s probably because I’m playing it at 1600x1200.
As for the game:
spoiler
It was nice to see Ahti again, it put a smile on my face, hopefully he will appear again later. Also, that first Night Springs episode was something heh. I find it is more of a survival horror game than its predecessors, which were more action horror IMO. The atmosphere is great, that scene when you cross the subway car full of charred people was really unsettling.
I’ve also been trying to play something that’s not a survival horror for a while, but I keep bouncing off most games. Dread Delusion, Pacific Drive, The Alters, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Pragmata… They all fail to grab me, but I think they will at some point in the future, they all seem to be great games in their own right. I started playing Tainted Grail yesterday and maaaybee I’ll stick with this one, I’m still in the tutorial zone, but it seems interesting.
I think I agree with that about Cronos. The lore has some interesting implications, especially with the exact nature of the Collective that I hope gets explored further in the future.
I’m glad you fixed the blurriness issue in AW2! One thing I will say is, while the Night Springs episodes are integrated into the campaign I find they kind of break the pacing and sometimes spoil things and work better when played afterwards. But I guess that’s a personal opinion.
Totally agreed about the subway, that whole Alan chapter is absolutely superb I think. Love all the detail like the text on all the signs all over the subway too.
Since you seem to be a big horror gamer, have you tried ROUTINE? I’ve been curious about it since I’ve heard some good things.
That’s the funny part, I’m not a big horror gamer, more like a big coward. But it’s the only genre that seems to be able to hook me at the moment for some reason. I’ve read the name Routine a couple of times but I haven’t even tried it, sorry.
I’ll follow your advice about Night Springs, the 1st chapter did break the pace, especially considering I was ready to stop playing when I started it.
Gotcha. Funny how that is, sometimes we need something outside our comfort zone to shake us up. I was close to buying ROUTINE last Steam Sale, but ultimately opted against it. I’ve heard good things, although I think it’s more psychological horror than survival horror.
Final note about the DLCs, the Lake House is also integrated into the main campaign and that one I didn’t feel break the pace as much. Despite being the reverse release order my preference is playing the Lake House when it appears in the story and then all the Night Springs episodes after finishing the campaign. Lake House still works fine as a post script too though, if you want the main story to be more concise and do all the DLCs after.
Still enjoying the new build options provided by Minecraft’s latest update.
I got a copy of PRAGMATA for my b’day so I’m playing that. It’s not yet “patient” but it’s fun still. I am having graphics issues on Linux but hope they get fixed with Nvidia driver updates someday. Game gives me a similar feeling like Titanfall 2 single player.
If you’re not already aware of the site, you may find some tips on protondb.
Palworld 1.0 came out. The new content has been good so far. I’m glad to have started over from the beginning, although I wasn’t too far in.
I finally had some time for games again this past week so I’ve been playing Hitman: World of Assassination. I’ve played it a lot before but mostly on Xbox (around 1500 hours I think? Something like that anyway). Now I’m going for all the steam achievements. I’ve still got all the Mastery Level 20 and Sniper Assassin ones to get, but otherwise there’s just a couple random weird assassination ones and I’m done. A lot of them have been pretty easy to get if you know Hitman well. The ones I’m missing though (aside from the random niche assassination ones) are all time sinks so it may be a while before I get 100%, but I’m determined now. Hopefully I get them all before I’m burnt out or get busy again.
Replaying through Half-Life to prepare for the HL3 release (any day now)
The roadmap: Black Mesa > Half-Life 2 > Alyx
Almost done with the Black Mesa. Honestly, it’s been a blast. Playing mixed on the Steam Deck and 4K TV.
How is Black Mesa on the Deck? I’ve been meaning to try it but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
It has really grabbed me. For years I’ve been looking for a game that’s like a single player MMO and here it is (no, Kingdoms of Amalur is not the answer, sorry internet). No surprise I guess to find that in an MMO that was turned into a single player/co-op game after their publisher ditched them (Digital Extremes).
The combat is fun. There’s lots to grind for - weapons, armor, accessories, echoes, cosmetics, mounts, furnishings for your apartment. The art is quite reminiscent of World of Warcraft and also of Airship Syndicate’s other games like Ruined King (also a fantastic game) and Battlechasers: Nightwar. The music is quite background but at times reminded me of Jeremy Soul’s original Guild Wars 2 score.
The performance is not great. With some research I managed to get it to run at 90-110 FPS consistently in open world (with an RX9070 and i7-9700k). In dungeons it runs better. There’s still some UE5 stutters there when you enter new areas and at some random moments but overall it runs well enough.
It’s gotta be the best £3 I’ve spent in a long time! I’m 55 hours in and there’s still a whole zone that I haven’t gotten to yet.
I’m gonna check this out tomorrow as your description sounds interesting. I have been watching Erenshor as a single player MMO experience but havent actually tried it yet. You may want to have a look at that if you havent hears of it :)
still BOTW. slowly working through it when I have time to play.
Totk for me. It’s been an enjoyable experience so far. BOTW is my favorite open world game of all time.
I used the recent Steam sale to grab Civ 5 from recommendations here!
You all were right. It’s great! I definitely like it more than Civ 6.
Only Civ you’ll need for a long time, possibly ever. Already great out of the box (assuming you got all the expansions), and after a few hundred hours you got tons of mods to spice it up too.
A friend of mine recently hit 3k hours in Civ5, which I thought was pretty impressive, until I realized he’s almost at 12k hours in EU4, and now I’m worried for his sanity.
I did grab the expansions, hard not to with how cheap they were on sale!
Good, I wasn’t sure whether they came bundled or not but just making sure since they’re pretty crucial. Enjoy!
