by d_w
For the past 2 years I've been documenting every time I play a game and what I thought about it during that session. No reason to stop now.
This will be unedited and likely full of typos and misspellings. The descriptions of my sessions may include story spoilers.
Here's the break down of the time of day:
| Time | Term | Time | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12am to 3am | Midnight | Noon to 3pm | Afternoon |
| 3am to 6am | Early Morning | 3pm to 6pm | Early Evening |
| 6am to 9am | Morning | 6pm to 9pm | Evening |
| 9am to Noon | Late Morning | 9pm to 12am | Late Evening |
Showing 1-10 of 50 items
Started: 1/1. Early Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed. When I first heard about this game I thought it was one of those terrible mash ups between Maso-core platformers and Metroidvanias like Castle In the Darkness or I Want to Be the Guy, but I watched about 15 minutes of a recent LP and realized that I was wrong. It's still really tough though. I got up to a Jellyfish boss so far and it seems alright. I'm not sure about it yet. For a PC centric game released in 2015 the controller support is wonky and annoying. It doesn't seem like it was built for gamepads. The default for what is "confirm," "cancel," "jump," and "shoot" is not typical for the genre and that's disappointing. I had to finagle the keybindings a bit to get it in a place where I liked it. ~~~ Played: 1/1. Late Evening. Mixed. No, I don't think this game is for me. I got to the robot Sea Serpent boss and no. This is not the kind of thing I'm looking for in a Metroidvania. The way it controls with what it's demanding of you so early on to do to beat that boss is not fun. Maybe if I had more health or if it wasn't so damn fast. I don't think I'll be playing anymore of this game. It's a shame since the art, music, and atmosphere. I don't know... maybe I'll restart on Easy. ~~~ Played: 1/1. Late Evening. Enjoyed. Restarted on Easy and it seems the amount of damage received and the amount of health you have are much better balanced. I'm enjoying this game a lot more. I do wish so many of the enemies didn't just sort of run at you when you got close and that the active frames on your shots were active during their entire animation. That'd make combat a lot less of a drag. Still I like the art, music, and the story so far. The platforming is pretty good too. Though jumping out of water is awkward. ~~~ Played: 1/2. Midnight. Mixed. Got up to the plant boss. It has at least 3 phases and that's too many. Especially when you fall in the water and can't get out because the game has trouble getting out of water when for whatever reason. It wouldn't be so bad if they enemies dropped health or if there was some sort of health pick up in the room. It just seems like poor design ethos to have health only be recoverable at certain spots instead of drops. Especially when avoiding damage is not always possible do to wonkiness on part of the game. ~~~ Played: 1/2. Late Evening. Enjoyed. Switching to easy was definitely the correct choice. I was able to beat that plant boss. Then I just sort of wandered around a bit. ~~~ Played: 1/3. Midnight. Enjoyed. My opinion of the enemy AI has not changed. Now I'm the temple and it seems kind of cool. I like that they mixed it up a bit and you have to do something to unlock a door rather than just make your way to set locations. Of course the thing you have to do is go to specific locations and destroy these orbs so it's not so different. Still that's a bit refreshing. They're being more demanding with the hookshot tricks. Which is fine, but I feel that since the blocks are about the same width of the player the tricks tend to be a bit too precise. I don't know how to explain it exactly. ~~~ Played: 1/3. Early Morning. Mixed. This game is actually getting a little too maso-core for me. I got to a skull boss and almost beat him twice, but eh.. I don't know. Getting to him was kind of a pain in the ass. I guess I have to use the dash more often than I am. Still I find it gets stuck on things too often. This game would have benefited from some more generous "pixel pushing" sort of collision. Where your character gets pushed around while sliding against boundaries. Especially with the dash. ~~~ Played: 1/9. Early Morning. Enjoyed. I had a long session and got real far into it. I now have all but one power and have found a bunch of bosses that I can't seem to damage. I have an infinite dash move now and I've mostly just been going through and finding all the little optional stuff and secrets. I do get disappointed when all I find is some reference or something instead of something cool. To get the infinite dash I apparently went backwards through the area you find it. I think I would have normally needed to collect all the diskettes to get it, but instead just sort of tanked my way through the obstacles. There's still a bunch of areas I haven't explored yet though. ~~~ Finished: 1/9. Morning. Enjoyed. I finished the normal ending I suppose. It was alright. There's still a bunch of places I could go, but I tried an area where you have to dash through all these 1 hit spikes and eh... I don't know I couldn't get passed one area in that. Apparently I'm missing a diskette as well. I don't know if I'll continue playing, but it's alright. I guess. ~~~ Played: 1/9. Late Evening. Enjoyed. Found some things that likely lead to other things but I fear I do not have the execution to see those things. So I will likely just quit and watch that LP that got me to buy the game. ~~~
Started: 1/3. Afternoon. PC Steam. Enjoyed. After finishing Book 4 of Chapters, I wanted to play the original. I thought my girl friend might enjoy it, but it seemed she felt it was a bit too slow for her. Perhaps we'll play more though. If not then I should really just play through it on my own. ~~~
Started: 1/9. Late Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed. I've been on a metroidvania kick and bought this game around the time I picked up ESA. It's part metroidvania part adventure game. So far it's been pretty good! Great music, great art, enjoyable dialogue, interesting puzzles, and my girlfriend found it charming while helping me out with the puzzles. My only complaint is that health doesn't drop nearly enough and combat is fairly lackluster. ~~~ Played: 1/10. Evening. Enjoyed. Beat a Frankenstein monster boss and got a lightning spell and a hammer. Used the Lightning spell to go up the clock tower and found a fight with a "Science Ninja." Couldn't beat him though so instead I went to the draw bridge and started to explore out that way. So a couple things I'm not so hot on about this game. One the fact that some enemies can reflect your shots and those shots damage you coupled with how you can't really aim other than horizontally is pretty annoying. Also it seems that leveling is the best way to overcome things in this game so far. Which requires grinding and that's just no good. The movement is slow and it makes combat lackluster. Still I like the adventure style puzzles and everything else about this game. I bet things get better once you gain some more movement options. ~~~ Played: 1/10. Late Evening. Mixed. So this game commits one of the most grievous sins of Metroidvanias and 2D platformers in general, double tapping to dash. Especially since it seems not to work half the time. Either I'm not pressing it fast enough or too fast, but regardless it could have been just a single button like one of the shoulder buttons, than there would be no issue what so ever. Axiom Verge had this issue too. Unlike that game where the issue was you'd dash off ledges when just trying to adjust your position, in this game the dash window seems to be really tight and doesn't 100% when you want it. It's really really annoying. Also I'm lost as to what to do next. A guide said "Go to Sinclair's Room" but I have not encountered anyone named Sinclair. ~~~ Played: 1/13. Midnight. Mixed. Defeated the Werewolf and now I have double jump. Explored everywhere I could go and apparently I'm missing a trowel for the next item. I have no idea where it could be. Though I just looked it up and apparently it's underwater. As far as I'm aware I can't be in water for too long so I'll check that later. As for my other thoughts about this game still stand. The double tap to dash is super frustrating. So much so I considered making a thread on the Steam forum, but this game came out almost a year ago and I don't really see the point now. ~~~ Played: 1/16. Late Morning. Mixed. I don't think I'll play this game anymore. It's just kind of lackluster. The character moves too slow and combat is really just kind of bad. I don't know... ~~~
Played: 1/10. Early Morning. PC Emulator. Mixed. Last year I started this because a friend of mine was playing it. I got up to the point where you first encounter the other castle. I remember liking it then but stopped because I died without finding a save point. So I went back and found one this session. I don't think I'll continue with this game though since it started to do the thing I really really hate with Castlevanias, when it just has long featureless hallways with tough enemies positioned so you fight one at a time. It's terrible and boring level design and something that plagues all of the "Igavania" styled Castlevanias. ~~~
Started: 1/13. Early Morning. PC Steam. Neutral. I don't know why I had a desire to play this, but I did. It seems alright I suppose. I don't really know what to make it of it yet. I really like the art style though. So far I've built my character to be agile. Not so sure that was a good think however. Well we'll see how it goes. ~~~ Played: 1/13. Morning. Enjoyed? There's something enjoyable about this game, but I'm not entirely sure what. I guess it's just a thing to do while I watch stuff. In combat it seems I can do pretty good by just dodging and draining their stamina so I can just sort of stun lock them, but this you don't actually do anything other than set skills I can't say there's really any strategy. ~~~ Played: 1/14. Early Morning. Enjoyed. I'm starting to understand the flow of this game and am actually kind of enjoying it. The story isn't all the terrible for what it is so far either. There's just enough mystery to keep me going. ~~~ Played: 1/15. Midnight. Enjoyed. Yeah this game is an alright thing to do while watching videos/listening to podcasts. However, outside of all the terribly done references, the one thing I don't like is the way the girl friend character is barely anything. You basically just have to chat with and buy gifts for her and that's it. It's pretty lame and doesn't really add anything. I wish there was something more there. ~~~ Played: 1/15. Early Morning. Enjoyed. I was getting really in a good grove where I didn't have to worry about money or stats and I was managing things really well, then the game sort of took away all my options and that's really unfortunate. However I am still managing things fairly well. I think if I just win the championship things will pick up again. ~~~ Played: 1/15. Morning. Enjoyed. I got to Russia and I don't really see what I can do to beat the boss guy. It doesn't seem like I can gain much from training. ~~~ Played: 1/15. Late Morning. Enjoyed. Now in the end of the game I think. It becomes an interesting management sim to be honest. Though I'm finding the fights way harder and I don't know why. For whatever reason my character loses all their stamina in the first round. I've tried changing up my abilities but it pretty much always happens regardless of what I do. Hrmm.. ~~~ Played: 1/16. Afternoon. Neutral. I don't know about this game any more. I'm just not liking the end stuff that much. Things take to long and you lose points to quickly. ~~~
Started: 1/16. Early Morning. PC Steam. Enjoyed. Played about 2 hours of this and it seems really cool so far. I like the art style and spooky ghost story stuff it has going for it. The radio dial mechanic is pretty interesting as well. I'm curious if there are any actual branching paths or if your choices actually matter. ~~~ Played: 1/16. Morning. Enjoyed. Outside of some little bugs and oddities here and there, I'm really enjoying this game. The story really seems to go places. I just wish I figured out certain things earlier than I did. Like the radio and history signs. Ah well. I might play through this again. ~~~ Finished: 1/16. Late Morning. Enjoyed. Yeah in the genre of trippy games set in the PNW this one is pretty good. I liked a lot about it. I didn't find all the collectables but may play through it again eventually. ~~~ Started: 5/28. Evening. Enjoyed. Showed my girl friend this game and she really liked what we've played so far. ~~~ Played: 5/28. Late Evening. Enjoyed. ~~~ Finished: 5/31. Late Evening. Enjoyed. We found all the collectibles and our ending was very different. My girlfriend felt the game could have used more interactivity and wasn't super happy with all the TEENS dialogue. ~~~
Started: 1/17. Afternoon. PC Steam. Neutral. Played enough to get passed the intro I think. Just picked my class. I don't think I'll like this game very much since I remember not liking the demo I played years ago on PS3, but I can help but be interested and the price was right. We'll see how it is. The general controls on keyboard and mouse seem fine though I had to use my gamepad when making my character since it just didn't feel right with the mouse. The menus, in general, are very much gamepad made. That's understandable though. I'll probably get used to it. Though I'll never switch over to gamepad since I can't stand looking around with the right stick. ~~~ Played: 1/17. Early Evening. Neutral. Made a Pawn and found a quest down a well were I died to lizardmen. I don't like gathering stuff in RPGs. I think it's one of the most tedious unnecessary thing to put in a video game. The menu design is wonky and overly complex too. But I'm liking the combat as a bow user. Hrmmm.... Oh. Also the sound volume on this game is really low for some reason! I don't know why. ~~~ Played: 1/18. Early Morning. Disliked. This is a bad game with terrible check points and clunky design all round. Dying would constantly mean I was put back 20 to 30 minutes and have to walk back and recollect anything I found along the way. I think I'll refund it. ~~~
Played: 1/17. Early Morning. PC Steam. Enjoyed. Finally got around to recording gameplay of the last update to my LP. I could not beat the 3rd optional boss and just wanted to get the LP done so I just did the best I could. I still really dislike the final boss. ~~~
Started: 1/30. Midnight. PC EGL. Enjoyed. For some reason I thought the PC release for this game was a Windows 10 only sort of thing and didn't get it when it was free. Ah well. I never had a 360 and never played this game. The graphics certainly don't stand the test of time, and the story is pretty bad, but its pretty cool so far. I'm playing with a gamepad and I had to rebind the controls. First, it's fucking rad that you can do that. That can be pretty hit-or-miss. Though I don't like that you can't set down on the left stick to be crouch. That I'm finding awkward. I also had to move shot to the L2 as I couldn't aim and hit R2 without it messing up my aim. I also moved jump to R2 so I could jump and still aim. Crouch is R1 and grenades/altfire is L1 of course. I tried a whole bunch of combinations and at one point had jump on L1. That has lead to me throwing a lot of grenades when I don't intend to. I also find myself pressing "X" intending to jump. Ah well I'll get used to it eventually. I wish crouch was a toggle. There's an option for running to be a toggle but not crouch. It's a bit strange. I stopped this session right around when I got the MP50. I'll certainly be playing more of this. ~~~ Played: 1/30. Early Evening. Enjoyed. Played up to where you get the SCUBA mask. This game is pretty good. I'm glad. I'm getting used to the controls I've set but still finding the combat kind of lackluster. Health doesn't seem to be too common but it's not that big of a deal. I'm finding way too many grenade upgrades. I've already have 16 or so of 30 and I don't feel too far through the game. I think the level design is pretty good. It definitely takes more cues from Metroid than Castlevania which is always a good thing. ~~~ Played: 1/30. Evening. Enjoyed. Got up to the 3rd spider boss. So some how I was able to sequence break and get the foam a little earlier than intended. There's this section with conveyor belts and when I first jumped down there they were running really slow so I was able to pick up some foam. It didn't really change much. I just sort of went that area in reverse. The foam gun, itself, is a pretty interesting upgrade. Sort of a mixture between the ice beam of Metroid and block placing power ups from other games. I like it. One thing I don't like is the finickiness of the 3D aiming. Sometimes when I want to aim at things in the background it won't and other times when I don't it does. It hasn't killed me yet, but it'd been close. Oh! And the map is a bit odd in places. Things don't always seem to correspond to the map grid and it's occasionally a bit confusing. ~~~ Played: 1/30. Late Evening. Enjoyed. I got missiles and the map is fully revealed. The bosses in this game are kind of uninspired. There are some many repeats with little twists. However the Super Metroid bosses weren't great either. The speedbooster upgrade is rad. It's even more rad you can run all long the top of the map pretty much. It's cool. I like that. I'm probably very close to the end of the game I'd imagine but I still have a bunch of stuff to collect. ~~~ Played: 1/31. Midnight. Enjoyed. I have just about all the main items I think. Just got some sci-fi shotgun thing and met the leader of the bad guys I suppose. The Walker boss was interesting, but very fiddly. The Speedbooster upgrade continues to be real fucking cool. ~~~ Played: 1/31. Afternoon. Enjoyed. I've been going around and collecting everything that I've missed. All I need is to or 3 of the passcode things to get the final upgrade. I'm pretty sure I know where they all are just not so sure how to get them. Something I notice about the late game upgrades is that they kind of just exist so you can get other items. That's a bit unfortunate. Especially the Hookshot. It just sort of makes things easier. ~~~ Finished: 1/31. Early Evening. Enjoyed. Beat the game and collected everything. It was a pretty good game overall. Definitely one of the best non-metroid metroidvanias out there. The story was pretty awful. I remember hearing they got some famous author to write the plot and well... maybe that should have gotten someone else. Beyond it just being generic, the dialogue was terrible. But for a game that originally came out in 2008 or 9 I don't expect much else from it. It definitely is of that era. ~~~
Played: 2/4. Late Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed. Decided to play this again. It remains to be fantastic. ~~~ Played: 2/7. Evening. Enjoyed. Man some of these get real tricky. I think I'm on H. ~~~ Played: 2/13. Evening. Enjoyed. I completed H and am on to I. So far I seems like more of the same from H.