RLZ

I picked up Alan Wake II and it’s ok so far. Game has a bit too much story to the extent that it feels walking sim-ish at times. The survival horror elements are there, so that’s a plus, but it doesn’t ever settle into a comfortable loop the way something like RE2 Remake does right away.

Why did Square's mid-tier games strategy fail so miserably? Since I started posting in Dtoid, I noticed a significant portion of commentators claim they missed the mid-tier games that defined the PS1/2 era, and that was supported by the gaming scene in YouTube. Yet, when Square unleashed a deluge of such game last year, none of them succeeded in making an impact.

Indeed, Front Mission 2 Remake, which was released in the West for the first time early this month, barely got any acknowledgment beyond a poor review by someone who couldn't gather how to play the game from Nintendo Life. This is a game people wrote to Square in the past demanding that they localize it.

Now, Square-Enix are reportedly abandoning their plans for those kinds of games, opting to focus fully on AAA games and such. Which is a shame, since those games released last year, despite their flaws, showed much more creativity and originality than the entirety of Square-Enix's AAA output of latter years. Only the work of Team Asano, which is not actually mid-tier, but looks to be deliberatly channleing that era, is passable for me.

Why did this happen just when it seemed we could get back to the best of Square?

Check out my latest PS1 Review of Jade Cocoon,a cult-classic JRPG that is partially inspired by Pokemon and Studio Ghibli. It has a surprisingly good narrative for a PS1game and innovative Monster fusion mechanic. However, some sluggish pace, repetitive dungeons, and poor Monster designs holds it from greatness.

Also, check out my latest Mega Man Retrospective blog about Mega Man X6, the point where the series jumped the shark in the opinion of a lot of people, and I am one of them. Despite some excellent music and sprite graphics, the game is simply poorly designed from top to bottom.

Finally,check out my weekly updates on the games I am playing now. The information in brackets is how long I have been playing the games and how close they are to the checkpoint that decides if I continue with them or not.

-Wild Arms (PS1) [1/4W]: This is exactly the kind of "mid-tier" game that I terribly miss. An extremely confident and competent JRPG that exudes a unique kind of style and charm that simply does not exist in other games. For Wild Arms, that charm was in fusing the Cowboy Western genre with JRPG and Anime tropes to create a unique world, with amazing music, and a really good story. Here is a game that has full confidence in itself, that it opens with a starting credit roll over an amazing funeral sequence three hours into the game. To humanity's eternal shame, they allowed the Wild Arms series to wither and die, but the legacy of the first two games on the PS1 lives on, and I will thoroughly enjoy this one.

-The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)[4/5W]: Nintendo, thanks to their dual home and portable console business, were operating with a model such that the portable games could be defined more as "mid-tier" games when compared to their home console cousins, even for the same franchise. With the merging of the two lines with the Switch, I feared that the Nintendo "mid-tier" game might disappear with that merger, and I think that has largely been the case. However, there are still some portable games to remake, and that's where Link's Awakening comes in.

This is the perfect bite-sized adventure for our green-clad hero, and it is a charming game from top to bottom. However, I don't particularly enjoy Dempe's make-a-dungeon system.

-CrossCode (Switch) [2/3W]: I am still enjoying my time with the 16-bit world of CrossCode. Mechanically, the combat system is really solid, while all the supporting systems mostly sync well together. However, my feeling that the game needed some editing persists. Besides the large number of side-quests, there is one system that I feel is at odds with the rest of the game. At one level, this is a game that wants you to explore each nook and cranny of every area. Yet, in order to maximize your combat gains, you are asked to go into a combat combo where you go fight one enemy after another with a countdown timer pushing you to fight before the combo is reset. This means that you will need to rush through areas to keep that timer from going down, which goes against the spirit of exploration. A better system would have been not to have a timer, but to keep you from auto-healing while the combo is still going. After all, the timer doesn't really add much to the experience.

-Judgment (PS4/5)[1/6W]: This is basically a Yakuza (Like a Dragon) game with a different coat of paint. Hell, the coat of paint is not that much different. This means this is a game full of bloated bullshit on top of a melodramatic soap opera of a story, filled to the brim with illogical characters, illogical actions, and a mountain of wasted time with maybe 10% good stuff.

Yet, despite knowing all of that, I continue playing those games. Is it because the good 10% is so damn worth it? Is it because I actually like playing Mahjong and Shogi? Regardless of the reason, I am giving myself a hard cap of 6 weeks to finish the story and be done with the game.

-Upcoming Games in my Backlog in Uncertain Order: Wild Arms 2 (PS1), Dragon Quest XI (Switch), Panzer Paladin (Switch), The Last of Us Part II (PS4/5)

Been mopping up AC6 bosses in NG+. It's amazing what a stun needle up anyones ass does.

Also playing Hunt: Showdown too late into the night and regretting it at work functions the next day.

Whenever I've some free time I've been, you guessed it, glued to my Wii U.
But Playing PSX games on it. MDK, CTR, and FFVII for the most part.
Nothing New has really caught my attention 🤷

I just now realized at 18:49 that it was Saturday today lol. MY BAD and thanks for subbing in!!

Edit: beat Remnant 2 earlier this week and it’s def a solid 8.5 or 9/10. I really really enjoyed it most of the way through and if Spidey 2 wasn’t out I’d prob have played Adventure Mode and checked more stuff out. Only two real negatives for me: the final boss is hot fuckin trash, and the protag’s voice acting and writing is totally at odds w the epicness and seriousness of the rest of the game. Your character’s lines are like a smarmy asshole - the tonal shift is totally off putting. Thankfully they don’t speak much!

Started Spidey 2 and just love it already. Never a doubt.

Still SNAP, but I’ve reached hate-playing it. I think I’m almost done for a while.

Went to Estonia for the week and had a lovely/mixed time there. The city is gorgeous and there was loads to see and do. It’s snowed twice here in Riga and I’m loving the weather.

Still reading Winter World by AG Riddle and it’s becoming a slog. Idk why. So I started HP Sauce and the Sorceror’s Stone which, Rowling herself aside, the book is lovely. I’ve never read the series and I’m actually excited to do so.

Book-wise I’m working through beta reader feedback, reworking my first 15-20 or so pages, and have started emailed literary agents in the ever dreaded querying process. Fingers crossed there.

Been doing pretty poorly mentally, idk what’s going on. Playing Spidey has helped, so has cooking and snuggling my dog. So I’ll keep doing that.

Hope you’re all doing ok out there. Pat loved ya.

More Lies of P. I'm almost done with the game, but I don't really want to be. Might commit myself to at least one NG+ in the future.

Some of Slay the Princess. Good game, more variety in routes than I expected.

My three primary games of course, Pocket Camp, Nikke and Splatoon 3 as well this week I got some nostalgia and returned to classic titles, installed in my PS Vita Street Fighter Aplha 3 and The King of Fighters ‘97, yes I do love fighting games as well, used to spent the 99% of my free time at the arcades when I was younger, good old fucking times when life was easier as well I was able to make tons of friends at those times, damn it really miss those times 😭

Hi everyone, sorry for the fumbling post.

So I capped off last weekend with some Splatoon 3 and hope to get some matches in this weekend to represent team Ghosts, staying true to my original Splatoon choice. Zombies stink and them bones are brittle.
Other than that I made some progress in Super Mario bros. Wonder. At the point where you can choose where to go I decided to go with lava and work backwards from there. I only have to cap off that world with the castle and then I think it's bog time. Wonderful game, I never thought I'd like 2D Mario as much as other 2D platformer franchises from Nintendo but here it is, about as good and inventive as Tropical Freeze or Woolly World.
One other game I picked up on a whim because Halloween is Layers of Fear : Legacy. I'm over halfway through and it's a bit of a mixed bag. At first I expected it to be more of a P&C thing with puzzles and looking through all the stuff early on I thought I wouldn't have it in me to do much, but then came the more linear part and while it felt less overwhelming it was also kind of underwhelming. There's no real danger and the jumpscares are rare and not really scary. I went through a part featuring dolls though and it finally delivered some spectacle to make it more than a tedious slog through everchanging rooms that get locked as soon as you step through a door with the occasional poltergeistey effect to barely make a dent in the monotoneousness. It also doesn't help that the hero seems to build up to be a giant asshole that I don't feel like helping out. Other things that made me a little wary were some of the writing that felt tonally wrong for what I guess the period this takes place in is (1930s ? Though at one point it mentions tapes so maybe it's later) and how some paintings repeat even before stuff goes to hell. It feels weird that an artist would hang several copies of a painting throughout their house.
So I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt but at over halfway through, the climax would really need to blow my socks off for the overall impression to be more than a big "meh".
I also kept playing both Super Mario Run on mobile for the plat points and Watermelon/Suika game on Switch once in a while.
I was also stupid and ordered the Persona games from LRG as well as Tokyo Dark. I hope that won't backfire too bad on the budget.

In reading, I kept advancing through Demon Slayer and am now up to volume 14. It's a better manga than I first gave it credit for. I like the art a lot and the writing is okay. I'm in view of the end since there are 23 volumes in all and I already have some later volumes so I'll soon complete the collection.

And that's all I have to say. I hope everyone has a nice weekend and does well enough.
Big hugs and stuff.

I would, but I in the southwest and by the time I'd post it, everyone is already off doing other things.

Resident Evil 3 remake: Beat - So I enjoyed it for the most part. I never played the original so I can't compare. This seems to be where the RE games start moving more to action horror over survival horror, which is fine I guess. There is some bad design like the bug hive and the stage 2 Nemesis fight. Also, one hit kills is cheap garbage.

Alan Wake Remastered: Started - It's Alan Wake with better graphics.

Pokémon Yellow: I'm debating if it's worth collecting as many Pokémon as passible in this game or just finish it off. I have no way to trade, so I can't get those evolutions, and there's no real way to transfer it over to the new games anymore. I did start tracking what I've caught on a online dex, but meh.

It's Halloween time, so we been watching It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and so on. None of these need any introductions I'd assume.

Daymare: 1998 was less than five dollars, and it was about time I cleared it from my wishlist.

Haven't played much of it, but it seems like a competent Resident Evil 2 remake-adjacent horror game (the lobby of the facility you're stuck in even looks similar to the lobby of the RCPD) with a little more emphasis on fringe (albeit somewhat clever) mechanics like an "overdose" function for health and multiple forms of reload ('x' to drop reusable clips and reload another, hold 'x' to more slowly reload ammo like you'd expect) to punish impatient or panicked players.

Story and writing are garbage, but it's no skin off my back. Doesn't really get in the way, at least. Visually, it's pretty damn good. Presentation, as well. Lighting, animation, sounds, all of it like these developers have had many years of experience. Gameplay, thankfully, also solid.

Steam reviews complain of hard to land shots, and I'm getting that sense. It'd likely be a much bigger issue on the harder modes. If the game is fun enough and as short as some other reviews are alluding to, maybe I'll give that a try out of curiosity.

Also, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. My only gripe is that, especially early on, some of the level design can be a nothing burger if you don't shoot for the Wonder Seeds or play around with any of the other collectables. However, there's so much imagination throughout the game thus far (coming up on the end of W3 and doing all I can) that I can't fault it too much.

An easy 9/10! Has prompted me to put Super Mario Maker 2 on my shortlist (for the time being).

Take the reins, RLZ! :D

As I've just posted, I got the Platinum trophies for Mortal Kombat 1 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 today.

Insomniac did it again, creating an even more exciting experience in terms of story but especially in terms of gameplay. Swinging around New York never felt so good!

Oh, and before I forget, fuck NRS and WB for putting a $12 (shitty) Fatality on the store.

*Marvel SNAP: I caved in and bought the season pass to get Elsa and revive my bounce decks, including my beloved Sera/Angela one (even though they nerfed Angela 🥲). Reached level 90 to get the precious gold, and now I'm focusing more on the Conquest.

Hope you're all having a good weekend!

This week I beat Donkey Kong Country 3. I bounced off of it hard earlier in the year, wasn't sure if it just wasn't as good as DKC2 (I mean....it's not) or I just didn't have the nostalgia for it like the previous two I had on SNES. This time I was able to make my way to the end. I finally understood the hook of the game, each level having its own gimmick, and the overworld being more open which are things I ended up really liking about it. When I talk about it, it feels like I have more gripes than compliments (controls felt off, art style I didn't care for, weird gameplay things like nothing exists offscreen or some cheap deaths). Thankfully on NSO the rewind ability took away most of the frustration. I don't think the true ending is worth the hassle of achieving it ethically lol. Now I can move on to Tropical Freeze!

Also spent some more time with Wii Sports Resort. Got my pickup basketball rating up to 1000. Swish!

Played a few things this week

Thoroughly explored the first world of Super Mario Wonder - and was pleasantly surprised by how much there was to find!

In BotW, I gave up on the Master Sword trial for now, finally tamed the Lord of the Mountain, and am still girding myself for a successful trip up Death Mountain.

Played a few levels OG Castlevania for funsies and got my ass whooped in F-Zero 99.

Some Sex and the City... still not great. And then watched Totally Killer which was fun!

Been going hard on Like A Dragon after I got the urge to play something JRPG grindy.
Thanks to the business side quest I am happily doing mindless tasks and wasting my life.

Too much because it’s been an insane month. Including Mario Wonder, Alan Wake 2, Sonic Superstars, Lies of P.

I thought there was a possibility the continuation of WBP? might lose traction, but even if that eventually happens, it just matters to me that folks kept its spirit alive. Life gets in the way for so many of us, but we’ll always be a community. In spirit t the very least.

I did over 200 entries, and so many of you showed out for every single one of them. I never took any of you, or your time, for granted, and I’m so happy and privileged that WBP was a part of peoples weekly routine.

I’m still not over what took place back in July. I may never be. But the love endures. Thank you everyone for everything x

Started Alan Wake 2. Gonna take my sweet time with this one!