Essence_of_Meh

Things are moving pretty smoothly so far, as I reached a bit over 50% last night according to the in-game progress tracker. I know it includes secrets and that I don’t need 100% to finish the game but that’s the most specific metric I’ve got so… I’m quite happy with the game overall. I did start to notice some things I’m not a huge fan of but they’re not enough to make we want to quit or even degrade my experience in a significant way. The main annoying element are probably the constantly respawning flying enemies - I know they are a staple of the series at this point and they aren’t difficult to deal with but that doesn’t make them any more enjoyable (especially when they try to block your climbing routes in certain rooms). Still, game is more fun than I expected it to be before starting so that’s good.

Ahh, another instance of a rare point-and-click adventure game. I played this one years ago and I’m pretty sure I even managed to complete it back then but I wasn’t certain and that’s not good enough. Because of this I decided to go through the game once again to make sure that yes, I did in fact play through the whole thing - it wasn’t easy. For those unfamiliar, Jack Orlando is a game about a private detective in 1933 America (something they really commit to with the writing, character prejudices etc). On his way home from a night of drinking Jack stumbles upon a murder, gets knocked out at the scene and ends up being the main suspect. Due to his status as a hero cop and years of friendship with the police chief, he get 48 hours to clear his name and find the real culprit - that’s where the player steps in. So yeah, I said I didn’t remember much about the game, right? Boy was it true. I thought I remembered some bits and pieces from my old playthrough but besides the very beginning of the game everything else turned out to be a complete fabrication on my part. I’m actually shocked how wrong I was about the whole thing.
That said, while my faulty memory is one thing, there are some completely out there sections I would’ve never guessed they were from this title. Did you know prohibition era America had medieval-fantasy-like catacombs with an indoor fountain and automated, Indiana Jones style mechanisms in the middle of the city? Yeah. My lack of experience with adventure games really shined here but even if I wasn’t THIS bad at the genre, the strict and often extremely weird progress requirements, mixed with a ton of junk items strewn everywhere meant I would never finish this without a guide. A straightforward game this ain’t. Presentation is pretty good. We have nice looking backgrounds and smoothly animated characters (even if I’m not a huge fan of the art style used for them). Voice acting is pretty solid for the most part, except for some really bad accents here and there.
Music is also great though it can get a bit grating after one too many loops. That’s probably just me though, as I have a hard time listening to saxophone and similar instruments for long stretches of time. Not great position to be in when playing a noir detective story. I can’t say it was my favourite point-and-click played so far but it was enjoyable enough. I’d just like to know where my completely fake memories came from…

I have no attachment or personal feelings towards the Castlevania series. I appreciate these games from a historical perspective but I never really spent much time with them outside of playing Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for a few hours as a kid (it was a pretty random purchase at the time).
I’ve been eyeing a bunch of various older (mostly 2D) games recently and decided to buy Castlevania Advance Collection to finally give the series a proper try - it was on sale and fit the criteria so why not? I was a bit worried about getting into Castlevania as many of the games (especially the early ones) look like they wouldn’t really be up my alley in terms of gameplay and controls. That may as well be true, as I said, I never really played the series, but going with the Advance Collection turned out to be a good choice - even if I needed a moment to get used to how to play “properly”.
While I’m still in the middle of my playthrough, I can safely say that Circle of the Moon is pretty great. It plays amazingly well, looks and sounds fantastic - it’s a genuinely fun title and that’s not always a given when going back to old classics. It might be one of my favourite “new” titles I’ve tried this year. I can’t wait to get back to it.

This is my… second attempt at playing this, I think? This time with a more “no pressure” attitude though it didn’t help much to be honest. Game runs and looks beautifully on the Deck - stable performance, no technical issues (except for a single crash), great image quality. Can’t say I’m a fan of the art style (stylised LEGO blocks mixed with more “realistic” environments) but I don’t hate it enough to make it a problem.
Gameplay and story presentation on the other hand… I’m not gonna lie, this title puts me to sleep (literally). Both elements are well made but they also feel extremely flavourless and plain. “Inoffensive”, maybe? I somehow managed to finish year 1 and have zero desire to go back for now - I might have to try playing it in chunks instead of normally. It’s not a bad game but it’s sooooo boring - enough so to make me wish I was playing the old Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone instead.

Ah Rayman… it’s a series I like even though, if I think about it, I didn’t really play much of it. I played Rayman 2 as a kid but only finished it a few years ago, tried (but never finished) 3 a bunch of times, spent some time with Jungle Run and dabbed a tiny bit with Origins - suffice to say, my attachment is more emotional or memory based rather than having to do with my actual experience with this franchise. It’s weird. For years, Rayman 3 has become something of a “cool game I want to go back to and finally complete”. Well, I did just that. I initially tried to play with the “Better Rayman 3” mod but something about its widescreen fix broke both the pre-rendered cutscenes and UI so I opted into using Ray3Fix and playing in 4:3 instead. It worked well enough though I can’t say it was worth it. R3 is a pure downgrade from the second game. Camera control is more finicky, constantly shifting between full control, static placement and a weird in-between with partial control. It’s also physically constrained by the level geometry which makes it feel even more stiff and constricting, especially in smaller environments (which there are quite a few of). I’m genuinely not sure there’s another game where I fought the camera this much, even though I’m pretty sure R2 had a very similar system (it’s been a while since I played that one but I know it wasn’t this painful).
Gameplay feels worse than R2, with enemy lock-on often aiming at a completely different enemy (or even direction) than you intend to, unimaginative level design and pretty boring enemies (including bosses). It’s not all bad (there are some decent sections here and there) but it’s not enough to elevate the experience into something enjoyable. Finally, there’s writing. Oh boy, the writing. It leans way bit too much into the snarky and edgy “attitude” era as if it was afraid to commit to itself and play things straight. This makes it feel very dated and, in my case, difficult to sit through. After finishing the whole thing I can’t say it was worth it. It’s a mediocre title and a bad sequel, I’m glad I can scratch it off my backlog but I won’t be coming back.

Whenever I play online games I tend to lean towards support gameplay - usually medic. That was also my plan for this attempt at getting into FFXIV but I wasn’t really feeling it and, since I don’t expect to play in a group, decided to play a combat role instead. Specifically: Pugilist (punch girl). I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun under current circumstances but at the same time, it’s still FFXIV so I feel rather neutral about the whole experience. I’ll keep trying to stick with it, at least for now, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be moving on the moment I find something else that catches my interest. This game doesn’t really gel with me and that sucks, because I do think it’s a solid title. Well, at least I don’t hate it.

This is more of a one-off as I installed it to check out whether achievement synchronisation between the Heroic Launcher and GOG works for this title (it doesn’t for the Croc remaster for example but that might be a problem with the game rather than Heroic). Still ended up doing a near full run, dying only to the final boss. I’ll have to get back to this game for real some time but for now my experiment ended up being successful so I happy with that.

I love Shantae. It’s the only series I can say this about without a doubt - no ifs, no buts, just pure enjoyment. It’s something I didn’t expect to say about a game, let alone a series and yet here we are. I played through the base game of HGH a year or two ago, now I decided to come back to complete the pirate mode. It’s the same set of levels with remixed challenges and played from the perspective of Risky Boots (Shantae’s main antagonist). She has her own set of mechanics - some of which might feel familiar for anyone who played Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, others completely new. All in all, it’s a rather different experience compared to the base game. The early game was pretty rough, as base Risky (without her gadgets) can feel a bit limiting. The lack of options mixed with her levels relaying more on off screen and constantly respawning dangers can lead to moments that feel less like a challenge and more like a chore. Thankfully, finishing each level grants you new abilities, expanding your movement and attack in ways that quickly make you forget about the initial frustration. What started as a worrying session of annoyance ended up being a very enjoyable playthrough. I still have a few more modes to play through but considering they all make use of the same set of levels, I’ll leave them for the future to avoid burnout. Shantae: HGH isn’t a perfect game nor is it the best title in the series. Despite its flaws however it’s still a part of my favourite series ever and a game I have a very hard time disliking. I hope the remaining games I’m yet to play through (original, Risky Revolution and the Seven Sirens) will keep this trend going.

I finished the game this week. What started as a rough but decent enough GTA clone with some unique ideas, turned into a pretty tiring experience by the time I was done with it. Between limited mission variety, decent but simple game loop (do simple mission, buy a businesses, take over district, buy & distribute drugs to get money, repeat 3) and constantly increasing reliance on big waves of enemies (sometimes never ending until you reach specific trigger), the whole things falls apart the longer you play. The worst of the worst is probably the final mission, where you’re spawned in the middle of enemy base, right in the open, surrounded by about 30 enemies, with no weapons except for a pistol with 7 shots. It was not fun. The game as a whole is still “fine”, as long as you play it in very small doses to avoid burn out. I’m glad I finally played it to completion but I don’t think I’ll ever touch it again. It least I know what I’ve been missing all this time.

I’ve been thinking about FF recently, mainly FF7 and its remakes but I’ve also looked into all of the other releases available on PC. While I still want to jump into those other titles, I decided to give FFXIV another go for now. New server, new character and a genuine attempt to embrace it all (cheese and all). So far, so good. I’m taking things slow (literally too, I haven’t teleported once) so I don’t expect to get back to where I left off on my original character any time soon. It’s fine though, I forgot a lot of the story already so I might as well take my time getting immersed in it. I just hope I’ll be able to click with it enough to get hooked this time.

I tried playing this game a few months ago but couldn’t get it to work - well, it worked out this time. Can’t say it was worth it though. I started this playthrough knowing these games aren’t really my type of thing but willing to give it a real shot, if only so I could talk with my friend (a huge fan of the series) afterwards and say “hey, I gave it a chance”. Things were relatively alright at the beginning, not great but decent enough to not feel put off immediately. It didn’t take long for my experience to sour though even then I was willing to chuck it up to it to “not being my thing” and wanted to finish the game - by the time I got to Metropolis (level 9 out of 13) I simply gave up.
This was probably the worst gaming experience I had in years. Between mediocre level design, encounter design ranging between “well thought out packs of enemies spread around logically” to “lets just spam a ton of random enemies at once, preferably in small space to make it difficult to avoid” and combat music constantly fading in and out, the whole thing ended up feeling like complete waste of time (in a bad way). I do not want to touch this series ever again and leave it to those who actually enjoy it.

On a more positive note, I started playing Scarface again. Well, I say “positive” but the this one started pretty rough as well, though for different reasons. Initially, I planned to play the game with the Scarface Remastered Project (mod improving textures, restoring missing effects from PS2 version etc) but had very little luck with it. I couldn’t install it on Linux and when I set up the new files using a Windows partition, none of the new assets would load anyway. Alright, that sucks but whatever. Let’s just play with the GangstaPatch (mod adding better widescreen support, improving performance and fixing a bunch of other issues) instead - this should be fine, right?
I spent like two hours trying to figure out why the game kept crashing. First it was right after the intro mission, then during said mission the moment I fired my gun. Guess what? You can’t play the game with framerate above 60 (especially during intro). It’ll work fine but only after the intro mission and even then it WILL crash the moment you finish any other mission as well.
Fine, this isn’t a huge deal even if it took me a while to figure out (should’ve start with the obvious solutions first but eh). Great, so the game is working perfectly now. How is it? Well, it’s pretty easy in terms of difficulty, mouse controls (camera movement and aiming during combat) are abysmal, driving is stiff and weightless, there’s no proper radio system (only a semi-manual music player) and everything looks… pretty bad in terms of visuals. Despite all of these flaws however I really enjoy it. While it looks and feels like a rushed budget title from a different era, it does have some interesting ideas like active drug dealing, ability to bribe cops, having to launder your money to keep it safe etc. Those things might not be perfectly executed but they’re enough to make the game feel somewhat unique compared to GTA titles. Add the “super serious” if corny story and pretty good voice acting (at least for most of the named characters), and you end up with a pretty decent licensed title. Nothing groundbreaking, sure, but an enjoyable romp nonetheless. Hopefully I can finish it this time instead of getting distracted again.