I’ve been mostly emulating Pokemon games this past week. It’s hard to find time to play anything right now so being able to pull out my phone or go to my computer, play for a bit, then set it down and not worry about it has been very useful.

Tinykin. A hand-drawn, cute Pikmin-like, but it’s all puzzle-platforming, rather than racing against time and dealing with enemies.

Controls are tight, sprites are adorable, sound design is thoughtful, story is unique, and it’s prefect if you want a more relaxed Pikmin experience.

I played through Botany Manor on my phone. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. A nice touch of summer flowers in the middle of the freezing winter.

Last week was rather busy so I didn’t have time to play much. I did however found a game I’ve been looking for for years now. A title, I pretty much gave up on ever finding again. This game is Tokkyuu Shirei: Solbrain for NES (some people might be more familiar with the version released in the west called Shatterhand).

So what is it? It’s a 2D action game, part platformer part beat 'em up, set in the future where you run through linear levels and beat bad guys. You can pick up Alpha/Beta icons to get a flying robot buddy whose attack patterns depend on the the combination of icons you got (you need 3 icons to spawn the robot). These buddies serve as your range attacks and allow you to fly up (it’s mostly useful for secrets and easier platforming, I believe).
All in all, gameplay here is kind of like a slower Mega Man focused on fist-fighting.

Simple but fun game with pretty great art and music. I really lost any hope I’d find it again - looks like my good fortune finally decided to show up for once!

Replaying Silksong for the first time. Dove in and sunny 90 hours into it the first time around, wanted to take an extensive break to go around again so it would be a less fresh on the brain

Chrono Ark

I’m at the true final boss, but got wiped. Felt a little deflating as the fake final boss was a super hype fight with awesome cinematic mechanics and presentation and I was all set to see the credits roll, only to stumble at the finish line. This is the downside of having a large story focus on your roguelike deckbuilder, I felt ready to see the (first) ending and now I just felt a wave of frustration. I need to take a break for a few days to reset and then come back with a better build, now that I now what the true final boss demands mechanically.

Ninja Gaiden

Been playing more of NG4 and NG2 Black. I keep going back and forth between them, and I can’t shake the feeling that NG4 is a great action game, but I wish it had more Ninja Gaiden in it rather than more Platinum Games in it. Also I hate the fact that NG4 is checkpoint autosave only and you never now when the last time you saved was, so you just kind of have to guess. I can’t understand why it didn’t use save statues like the previous games.

Rise of the Ronin

A comment on here last week got me interested enough to acquire this from Fitgirl to try it out. I’ve been somewhat curious before as I do like Team Ninja and have heard good things about the combat, despite the otherwise mixed reception. But after reading about it on here I suddenly felt the Open World Slop urge hit me out of nowhere. This far though I’ve only gotten so far as to halfway finish designing my characters in the very extensive character creator…

Not sure how patient it is, because I ordered the physical console version ASAP. But I just got my copy of UFO 50, everyone’s favorite new-old game compilation from yesteryear.

I’ve tried about 10 of the games so far, all very interesting. Some I really enjoy, some feel like they’ve intentionally added too many rough edges to make them feel retro.

Barbuta seems such an interesting one, but I really wish the character was just a little more fun to move and control.

I’ve been playing Feng Shui Meowjong which is a roguelike deckbuilder based on Mahjong. Oh, and it has cats! Been waiting for it since playing the demo last year and it’s been pretty awesome.

Just bought Chrono Ark and Drop Duchy so along with my backlog that’ll keep me going a while.

I was playing The Witcher 3 but got kinda bored after about 40hrs.

Taking a break from Skong & No rest for the wicked.

Playing Octopath 2 in the mean time. It’s such a contrast I think I consider this relaxing game. The vanilla gameplay is too easy to cheese, not that it’s bad. Though I personally find the story uninspiring most of the time, most of the dialog is so generic I just glossed it over.

The spooky Mansion sidequest is a nice surprise.

I’m elbow deep in Fallout 4. I don’t think we need it described here at length, it’s very much Fallout, but great because of that. I’m enjoying the simple delights of romping about capping fools with a stubby lever rifle dressed in my nice shiny Vim-branded power armour

Unreal Tournament 2004. Someone made a post about a reworked version free to download a few days ago and I’ve been hooked ever since. I’ve mostly been playing story-driven single-player RPGs lately and having a game that you just boot up and play three action-packed matches in ten minutes is a breath of fresh air.

Bloodborne

Having played this through including the DLC years ago on my PS4 I recently find that this can be emulated quite well on the PC now. When I say quite well I mean 3440 x 1440 at 60FPS, it’s incredible!

I’m going for an Arcane build this time which is quite a different pkaystyle from the more frantic parry and dodge that you would normally have, but it’s lots of fun.

Just killed the Bloodstarved Beast and got the first Chalice, so I’m entering the dungeons next.

Wasteland 3. This game is really good, but super whacky. We just fought against a tribe of Reagan worshippers with a giant articulated bust of God-president Reagan that shoots lasers out of its eyes.

We started another Minecraft server with our friend group, hopefully this time it lasts a bit longer than a few weeks.

Heavily modded Stardew Valley with twin again! We unlocked the bridge to…whatever that mod is called and we cleared out all the junk. Twin put down a winery but that’ll take a bit. I think that’s my job, the wine, but I forget.

Just finished Death Stranding. WTF is this ending 😂? Felt like having to sit through a movie, c’mon I’m playing a game for a reason. Anyway, still liked it a lot, it only started to feel like an epilogue too early. And thankfully I’ve been mildly spoilered by the artwork of DS II, otherwise I might not have finished (like Enderal, the decision at the end was so shitty that I could not finish it).

Next up: A plague tale, but I haven’t started yet.

The Toaplan Arcade Collections were on sale. 16+ games (if you count the different releases of some games).

I also played Thank Goodness You’re Here. Good fun.

Rimworld. With 300 mods.

ReTHAWed, a Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland overhaul mod (really, it’s own program). Love putting in my own custom soundtracks and putting on clothes from the mod website.

Also, playing as Shadow The Hedgehog, with the OST playing, and the voice lines, while playing in the dystopia map is just 😙👌

I am playing something really old. Dark age of Camelot. Got some IRC friends who got me into this (again) because they were talking about them playing it again on a free server.

This game does MMO so good. This was the peak before WoW changed the market (to worse). The game design in DAoC is genuinely unique. There are almost no instant stuff. No global cooldown. Melee skill speeds are based on the weapon as you apply styles on the swings. Some of the abilities need you to hit from a certain direction and they have follow ups. You have 9(!!) second stuns and 40 seconds mesmerizes (kind of like sleep) so even small groups can kill larger groups in PvP. If you play a caster and get hit in combat, well… there goes your spell to nothing. Spellcasters are strong but once in melee you are pretty much screwed.

You really have to group up to level since regen is so slow and you get xp bonuses from doing this and also able to take down harder mobs giving more xp up to a cap. When pulling, depending on group size the mobs do “baf” (bring a friend). Afaik not many games does this today. It is such an easy thing to bring people together. Make it harder to solo play, give bonuses from teamwork. Make people talk to eachother.

Everything is just… Awesome. Except the slow movement without movement buffs.

Finally finished Black Mesa which was fun for sure. Waiting for the next HL2 sale now and probablly gonna start KDC2 now, even when I don’t have much time to play these weeks.