Picked up Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth physically because I'll be able to play it due to finishing the 3 hashino Persona games and Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, so I can have the pre-order bonus for whenever I'll replay the second game.

Managed to beat Three Houses right before my study starts up again which is nice. It's the first Fire Emblem game I've beaten and I enjoyed it much more than my attempt at Awakening. Maybe I'll return to that game to give it another shot at some point.

September 2nd - Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 125h 22m - (Main+) 8/10 - Beat the Verdant Wind route & the side story.

Here's my review:

Pros:
Three Houses greatest strength is its characters. You would think that with so many characters to wield, their quality would vary, but most are excellent. Some start better than others but by the end of their supports, you can see their great characterization and personalities. Combining these characters with a great story does wonders as well. In the first half, there is a lot of suspense and mystery about what is happening. Meanwhile, in the second half, you're progressing towards a clear goal while still having enough twists and turns to keep the story interesting.

The gameplay stays fresh throughout the game with any number of ways you can tackle battles to how you manage your time. Especially regarding which direction you want to push your units towards. Although some of the limitations on gender-locked classes do seem a bit odd.

Neutral:
The music in Three Houses is great, although most of it isn't as memorable as I would like it to be, with only a couple of highlights coming to mind such as Between Heaven and Earth and God-Shattering Star.

Considering how much I liked the Verdant Winds route I would like to experience the other routes the game has to offer. However, the game's length deters it, especially when the first half of the game is the same. Some people can definitely stomach that, but I don't replay many games, so for me, it's a dealbreaker.

Cons:
The one part of the game I didn't enjoy much was the difficulty balancing. At least in normal mode, you get way too many turnwheels such that losing units is almost impossible. Having quit Awakening due to its difficulty I at first welcomed turnwheels as a way to make losing units less harsh. But it went too far, such that even as a first-time player, I didn't lose a single unit, which negates the gameplay-driven stories that a permadeath system can create. (I still remember how I lost all my units in Awakening and it made my game unique to other playthroughs.)

I would love something like this as well.

I'm currently a bit over halfway in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, so I'll just nominate that again.

I finished Shadow & Bone yesterday. Read it as a break in between Ascendance of a Bookworm volumes.

Rating: 6/10
Here's my review:

Pros:
Shadow & Bone has a good amount of mystery behind the story. I especially liked the second chapter where you're just as clueless as to what is going on as the protagonist. The book's pace also feels fast despite its page count as there is always something interesting happening. The ending sets up the sequel very nicely making me want to read that one to see where the story will progress.

Cons:
The book's main plot twist is that the Darkling wants to expand the Fold instead of destroying it, which comes a bit too suddenly. Some clues were given beforehand, but I feel it wasn't foreshadowed enough.

Collection Link

❌️ 01. A new game (released within the past year) - Jusant
❌️ 02. An old game (released 10+ years ago) - Crashmo
❌️ 03. A really old game (released 20+ years ago) - Donkey Kong 94
❌️ 04. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago) - Super Mario Bros. 2
✅️ 05. A time sink (50+ hours) - Persona 3 Reload
✅️ 06. A quick completion (less than an hour) - Passed & Present
❌️ 07. A game you got for free - Human Resource Machine
❌️ 08. A game you've been wishing and waiting for - Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Replaced: Professor Layton and the New World of Steam)
❌️ 09-1. A remake or remaster of a game - Super Mario RPG 2023
❌️ 09-2. A game that received new translations to other languages some time after its initial release - 428: Shibuya Scramble
❌️ 10. A game with 6+ endings - Chaos;Head Noah
❌️ 11. A collection of games - Zero Escape: The Nonary Games
✅️ 12. A game recommended to you by someone else - Chants of Sennaar
❌️ 13. A game whose title could describe your life - No Time
❌️ 14-1. A game with an alliterative title - Will: A Wonderful World
✅️ 14-2. A game whose title contains the name of a color - Paint the Town Red
❌️ 14-3. A game whose title starts with a number - 80 Days
❌️ 15. A game that heavily focuses on flight - Airport Madness 3D: Volume 2
❌️ 16. A game from a genre you don't usually play - Sifu
❌️ 17. A game that is themed around dogs or cats - Stray
❌️ 18-1. A game that features multiple genres, or is a mashup of different genres - CrossCode
❌️ 18-2. A visual novel or text-based game - Higurashi When They Cry
❌️ 19. A game where you play as an antihero or a villain - Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
❌️ 20-1. A game set in a historical time period - The Forgotten City
❌️ 20-2. A game set in the far future - The Entropy Centre
✅️ 21. A game with a female protagonist - Super Metroid
❌️ 22. A game without any humans - Tunic
❌️ 23. A game where you play as a robot or an alien - Detroit: Become Human
✅️ 24. An arcade-style high score game - Azure Reflections
❌️ 25-1. A game set in a world you would like living in - Steins;Gate
❌️ 25-2. A game whose protagonist you would want to be friends with - Persona 5 Tactica
❌️ 26. A game where you play as a bug or an aquatic creature - Bug Fables: The Everlasting Spring
✅️ 27. A game that was adapted from another medium (book, movie, etc.) or a game that has been adapted into another medium - Persona 4 Golden
❌️ 28. A game you watched someone else play first (partially or in full) - Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2
❌️ 29. Another person’s favorite game - Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
❌️ 30. A game with a diverse cast - Fire Emblem: Three Houses
❌️ 31. A cornerstone to gaming culture - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
❌️ 32. A game that starts with the same first letter as in your username (if your username doesn’t contain letters, pick a random letter) - Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition
❌️ 33-1. A “threequel” (third part of a series) - Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
✅️ 33-2. A spin-off game - Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
❌️ 34. A bright and cheerful game - Toem
❌️ 35. A game containing a real or fictional religion - Bravely Default
❌️ 36. A game that heavily features either fire or ice - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
❌️ 37. A game that heavily features money, gold, or economics - Weapon Shop De Omasse
❌️ 38. A game with a subtitle - Super Mario Bros. Wonder
❌️ 39. A game that surprised you - Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane
❌️ 40. A post-apocalyptic game - BioShock
❌️ 41. A game with a short title (4 letters or less) - HUE
❌️ 42. A game that had a red retirement rating on HLTB when you started playing it (10% or higher) - AiRace Speed
✅️ 43. A game that one of your favorite artists worked on (artist, developer, musician, voice actor/actress, etc.) - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
❌️ 44-1. A game you previously retired or put on hold - Spore
❌️ 44-2. A game that you have beaten before and are replaying - Hollow Knight
❌️ 45. A game that is on someone else’s HLTB 2024 Gaming Challenge List - Cocoon
❌️ 46-1. A studio's very first game - Neon White
✅️ 46-2. A studio's most recent game (at the time when you started playing the game) - Event[0]
❌️ 47. A game that had its HLTB times on a purple/red/gray background at the time you started playing it (color indicates the amount of submitted playtimes, red = low amount, gray = zero) - Can of Wormholes
❌️ 48. A game that has been a HLTB Game of the Month - Ori and the Will of the Wisps
❌️ 49. A game listed on the HLTB stats page, or the stats page filtered for a single platform - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
❌️ 50. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer - The Spectrum Retreat

July Update

The two games I beat this month were already on the list. I'm now one-fifth through the challenge, which is allright by my standards. If I keep up a perfect pace I'll be able to get halfway by the end of the year, but I doubt it'll go that smoothly.

✅️ 27. A game that was adapted from another medium (book, movie, etc.) or a game that has been adapted into another medium - Persona 4 Golden
✅️ 46-2. A studio's most recent game (at the time when you started playing the game) - Event[0]

Totals:
Completions (10/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

This month not only did I manage to beat Persona 4 Golden in less than a month but I also beat another game on top of that. So I'm pleased with myself.

July 9th - Event[0] - 3h 30m - (4/10) Main+ - Got the Together Forever ending and half the achievements.

July 28th - Persona 4 Golden - 114h 30m - (Main+) 9/10 - Got the true ending, maxed 17/23 social links completed 63/69 quests and got 37/50 achievements.

Short TLDR of my reviews:

Event[0] - Innovative aspects were disappointing.

Persona 4 Golden - Best main cast, too obtuse at times and one shit dungeon.

I've finally finished P4G. It was quite the undertaking but due to summer vacation, I managed to speedrun the game just a bit. Fantastic game although it does (sadly) have a couple more flaws than P3 and P5 in my opinion. Next I'll be playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

July 28th - Persona 4 Golden - 114h 30m - (Main+) 9/10 - Got the true ending, maxed 17/23 social links completed 63/69 quests and got 37/50 achievements.

Here's my review (It's the longest one I've posted on the site so far and this version is even longer than the one I have on my profile since it was too long to fit everything I wanted to say.):

Pros:
Persona 4 Golden's best aspect is its atmosphere. The one in this game is much more friendly and welcoming than what P3 or P5 had. You can see this clearly with Dojima and Nanako. This is greatly complemented by the interactions and dynamics between the party members. They are top-tier, especially in terms of comedy, there are so many hilarious scenes in the game.

I like the mystery angle that Persona 4 used for its story. As a big murder mystery fan, I was instantly hooked. Even though I pretty much already knew it was Adachi due to spoilers, it was still interesting to see how exactly it was foreshadowed using certain aspects. The party members facing their true selves to awaken their personas seemed to be the most in-depth and interesting way to do it across the 3 Persona games I've played. You learn a good amount about each character that way and I was always looking forward to how the next party member would handle theirs.

The music in P4 is also absolutely superb. I think it might also be that the musical style of the game fits me. I especially enjoy all the main day themes such as Heartbeat Heartbreak, Your Affection, Signs of Love and Snowflakes. The only real disappointments are the first 3 dungeon themes, but luckily there's also a bunch of bangers in those as well. And anything is better than the trash Tartarus themes in P3. My favourite song is I'll Face Myself. It plays during those aforementioned Persona awakening scenes but also during other impactful emotional scenes, which is what makes it extremely strong for me.

The number of references to the person you're dating is much more than you'd expect. P4 has a large amount, especially minor ones in small scenes. No idea why it was cut back in P5 because it makes the relationship seem so much more believable.

The customizable difficulty options in the game are nice as they allow you to change specific aspects to fine-tune the difficulty to what you think is appropriate.

The true ending is also great. It ties up all the remaining plot threads and reveals the true culprit behind the entire game. I wasn't expecting the scene where you return to Inaba for the summer either, it's a great showcase of how the characters have truly grown after you helped them face themselves and maxed their social links. This is illustrated especially well through the new designs that each character has, which break the color coordination each character had before alongside drastic alterations to their design overall.

Neutral:
Speaking of the true ending, I missed it the first time and had to reload a save to get it. I didn't even have a clue I didn't get the best ending until my friends told me. The game barely gave any hints that there was more to the game, especially the moment where you have to find the route to the true ending. You have to go back to the Junes food court after talking to all the social links you maxed on the last day. I find this illogical because you already had to go all over town to talk to the social links, so you think that there's nothing left to see at that point. That's on top of the fact that it's the last day of the game. I was already considering the game done at that point, that there was nothing left to see. Because how could there be? There's only one day left in the game.

Regarding the story there are some minor nitpicks. I already knew the culprit was Adachi all along and was expecting some grand reveal, but the way it was eventually revealed felt a bit too cryptic. You have to choose him from a list of your social links, but I don't think there was enough evidence given to the player at the time to support that conclusion. Of course, since I knew the culprit from the start, I can't say this for certain.

Cons:
There are only two parts of the game that I truly disliked. The scene in the hospital where you can get the bad endings and Marie's dungeon. Starting with the former.

The way to get the path forward wasn't clear in the slightest and I was very confused as to what it was until I got it. If it was just that I would be able to excuse it since it's a mystery game after all. But it's so incredibly tedious and annoying that I can't forgive it. Every time you fail you have to go through the unskippable credits sequence. But you can't even save right before you make the choice so you have to redo the same segment over and over. It's the only time I got so annoyed at the game it took me out of the game emotionally.

Lastly, there's Marie's dungeon. To preface I don't like Marie as a character either, but the other games have also had bad characters so that alone isn't a dealbreaker. The difference is that Marie is an integral character with her own dungeon. The real problem however is the dungeon itself. It goes against the mechanics you've been taught throughout the rest of the game. You can't use the items you had before, you don't gain money and you lose half your SP after every battle. It restricts your strategy and makes you play a simpler playstyle. That's the last thing a JRPG should do, it should be trying to facilitate the creation of unique strategies by new challenges. Not removing features. I have no idea how this dungeon made it into the final game.

I'll nominate Fire Emblem: Three Houses since I'll mainly be playing that once I'm done with P4G.

I would be playing P4G but some stuff came up, so I can't play that for a couple of days. Instead, I finally decided to beat this game after I got it as a present years ago. And if I'm going to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. This was one of the games that GMTK recommended as the most innovative games of the year and I've liked all the other games he's recommended in that category, but this one's innovative aspects weren't enough to save it in my eyes.

July 9th - Event[0] - 3h 30m - (4/10) Main+ - Got the Together Forever ending and half the achievements.

Here's my review:

Pros:
The ending I got was quite a novel idea and fit well into the game's themes. I also enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspect of the game, making your way through the ship. However, I do think that the memory access codes could've been introduced at some point because, to my knowledge, they just appeared at one point.

Neutral:
Event[0] has a pretty good story with a lot of mystery and intrigue. I think the twist no matter how obvious that Kaizen was evil and not helping you wasn't built up enough. It could be that I missed the foreshadowing or that it simply went over my head, but I did read almost all the data logs, so there can't be that much that I missed. I also tried to get multiple endings from my last save, but maybe I needed to have done something else differently because I couldn't seem to get any of the other endings.

The main selling point of the game was the AI Kaizen you could talk to. It was nice, but it wasn't all that impressive in the end. There were a couple of times you had to convince the AI of something, but it felt more forced and the AI's responses felt janky at times.

Cons:
In one section of the game I was bashing my head against the wall trying to find an item and the AI refused to give any meaningful clues, I spent over half an hour on that puzzle alone and I was even considering just looking up where it was. To the AI's credit, however, it gave me plenty of useful clues for previous puzzles.

Collection Link

❌️ 01. A new game (released within the past year) - Jusant
❌️ 02. An old game (released 10+ years ago) - Crashmo
❌️ 03. A really old game (released 20+ years ago) - Donkey Kong 94
❌️ 04. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago) - Super Mario Bros. 2
✅️ 05. A time sink (50+ hours) - Persona 3 Reload
✅️ 06. A quick completion (less than an hour) - Passed & Present
❌️ 07. A game you got for free - Human Resource Machine
❌️ 08. A game you've been wishing and waiting for - Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Replaced: Professor Layton and the New World of Steam)
❌️ 09-1. A remake or remaster of a game - Super Mario RPG 2023
❌️ 09-2. A game that received new translations to other languages some time after its initial release - 428: Shibuya Scramble
❌️ 10. A game with 6+ endings - Chaos;Head Noah
❌️ 11. A collection of games - Zero Escape: The Nonary Games
✅️ 12. A game recommended to you by someone else - Chants of Sennaar
❌️ 13. A game whose title could describe your life - No Time
❌️ 14-1. A game with an alliterative title - Will: A Wonderful World
✅️ 14-2. A game whose title contains the name of a color - Paint the Town Red
❌️ 14-3. A game whose title starts with a number - 80 Days
❌️ 15. A game that heavily focuses on flight - Airport Madness 3D: Volume 2
❌️ 16. A game from a genre you don't usually play - Sifu
❌️ 17. A game that is themed around dogs or cats - Stray
❌️ 18-1. A game that features multiple genres, or is a mashup of different genres - CrossCode
❌️ 18-2. A visual novel or text-based game - Higurashi When They Cry
❌️ 19. A game where you play as an antihero or a villain - Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
❌️ 20-1. A game set in a historical time period - The Forgotten City
❌️ 20-2. A game set in the far future - The Entropy Centre
✅️ 21. A game with a female protagonist - Super Metroid
❌️ 22. A game without any humans - Tunic
❌️ 23. A game where you play as a robot or an alien - Detroit: Become Human
✅️ 24. An arcade-style high score game - Azure Reflections
❌️ 25-1. A game set in a world you would like living in - Steins;Gate
❌️ 25-2. A game whose protagonist you would want to be friends with - Persona 5 Tactica
❌️ 26. A game where you play as a bug or an aquatic creature - Bug Fables: The Everlasting Spring
❌️ 27. A game that was adapted from another medium (book, movie, etc.) or a game that has been adapted into another medium - Persona 4 Golden
❌️ 28. A game you watched someone else play first (partially or in full) - Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2
❌️ 29. Another person’s favorite game - Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
❌️ 30. A game with a diverse cast - Fire Emblem: Three Houses
❌️ 31. A cornerstone to gaming culture - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
❌️ 32. A game that starts with the same first letter as in your username (if your username doesn’t contain letters, pick a random letter) - Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition
❌️ 33-1. A “threequel” (third part of a series) - Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
✅️ 33-2. A spin-off game - Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
❌️ 34. A bright and cheerful game - Toem
❌️ 35. A game containing a real or fictional religion - Bravely Default
❌️ 36. A game that heavily features either fire or ice - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
❌️ 37. A game that heavily features money, gold, or economics - Weapon Shop De Omasse
❌️ 38. A game with a subtitle - Super Mario Bros. Wonder
❌️ 39. A game that surprised you - Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane
❌️ 40. A post-apocalyptic game - BioShock
❌️ 41. A game with a short title (4 letters or less) - HUE
❌️ 42. A game that had a red retirement rating on HLTB when you started playing it (10% or higher) - AiRace Speed
✅️ 43. A game that one of your favorite artists worked on (artist, developer, musician, voice actor/actress, etc.) - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
❌️ 44-1. A game you previously retired or put on hold - Spore
❌️ 44-2. A game that you have beaten before and are replaying - Hollow Knight
❌️ 45. A game that is on someone else’s HLTB 2024 Gaming Challenge List - Cocoon
❌️ 46-1. A studio's very first game - Neon White
❌️ 46-2. A studio's most recent game (at the time when you started playing the game) - Event[0]
❌️ 47. A game that had its HLTB times on a purple/red/gray background at the time you started playing it (color indicates the amount of submitted playtimes, red = low amount, gray = zero) - Can of Wormholes
❌️ 48. A game that has been a HLTB Game of the Month - Ori and the Will of the Wisps
❌️ 49. A game listed on the HLTB stats page, or the stats page filtered for a single platform - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
❌️ 50. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer - The Spectrum Retreat

June Update

I managed to beat 4 short-ish games on my list and they were all already on the collection. The only thing that changed is that I replaced Professor Layton and the New World of Steam with Mario & Luigi: Brothership since the latter is releasing this year compared to the former.

✅️ 12. A game recommended to you by someone else - Chants of Sennaar
✅️ 21. A game with a female protagonist - Super Metroid
✅️ 24. An arcade-style high score game - Azure Reflections
✅️ 43. A game that one of your favorite artists worked on (artist, developer, musician, voice actor/actress, etc.) - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Totals:
Completions (8/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

Beat a solid 4 games this month. (No iffy cases like last month.) One every week, which I find impressive considering my poor track record thus far this year. Although next month might not have any games, since I started Persona 4 Golden and I'm predicting that that game will take me around the same amount of time it took me to beat Persona 3 Reload.

June 6th - Azure Reflections - 15h 6m - (Main+) 8/10 - 1cc'd story, extra and boss rush with every character on normal mode. Got 23/39 achievements.

June 15th - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 15h 27m - (100%) 9/10 - Beat the game and beat all the challenges.

June 21st - Super Metroid - 11h 43m - (5/10) Main+ - Beat the game and got 66% item collection.

June 27th - Chants of Sennaar - 12h 18m - (100%) 7/10 - Got the true ending and got all 25 achievements.

Short TLDR of my reviews:

Azure Reflections - Captivating and beginner-friendly.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 10/10 story.

Super Metroid - Metroid with janky controls and a terrible difficulty curve.

Chants of Sennaar - Neat unique puzzle game with an interesting ending.

I finished Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 Volume 1 and I'll start the next volume tonight. I gave this book a separate review, but I might switch to a per-volume review system due to the light novels blending together a decent amount.

Rating: 8/10
Here's my review:

Pros:
The main strength of the Ascendance of a Bookworm books are their progression. They're only 300-400 pages long, but each book's start and end feel drastically different. It happens subtly, slowly building and going further. Before you realize it, the situation has changed quite a bit.
Part 2 Volume 1 has some great humor as well, with multiple times it got a good chuckle out of me, although this is shared by the other books as well.
I liked that it sprinkled in what I assume was the start of a larger plotline with the taue fruit being able to drain mana. I'm excited to see how that will continue to develop.

Neutral:
Lutz's family situation managed to provide an unconventional yet effective climax to end the book, although it was not quite as memorable as some of the prior books.

Sounds interesting, I'll do a check-in as well. This is what I said at the beginning of the year and now the situation is quite different indeed.

I'm planning on beating Super Mario Bros. Wonder and probably Persona 5 Tactica as well. Other than those two I don't have any plans. I usually just go with the flow and play whatever seems interesting at the time.

I do still plan to play Super Mario Bros. Wonder during my summer vacation, I just put it on hold while I didn't have access to the game. Although my playthrough of Persona 4 Golden could conflict with this. I honestly don't see P5T happening until the end of the year at the earliest. I already played another Persona game and Tactical RPG earlier in the year. Those are Persona 3 Reload and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope respectively. On top of that I'm currently playing P4G and then there's also the fact that I will continue my playthrough of Fire Emblem: Three Houses during the summer as well. I just don't see Persona 5 Tactica happening until near the end of the year due to genre and franchise fatigue. Although there's also a chance I might not play it at all considering I'm 100% going to play the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection and Mario & Luigi: Brothership when those games come out.

It would be nice for there to be a separate date started field for a playthrough. I know that there is a date-added stat, but I add games to my backlog when I own them, not when I start them, so that doesn't work for me. With a separate date started field, I could keep track of that as well. This could result in some other interesting stats such as sorting the days between starting a playthrough and finishing the game.

Managed to beat another game in under a week, which I find quite impressive. Now I'm going to move on to a meaty game after playing so many short ones for a while, as I'm finally starting Persona 4 Golden.

June 27th - Chants of Sennaar - 12h 18m - (100%) 7/10 - Got the true ending and got all 25 achievements.

Here's my review:

Pros:
Slowly piecing together the language of each area is a very natural puzzle. Chants of Sennaar uses a similar structure to Return of Obra Dinn as you have to get all the symbols on one page correct before being told whether you were correct, which prevents brute force attacks. At first, I thought the images gave too much of the puzzle away, but later on, it helped with the difficulty and gave you a clue about what you should be looking for.
I liked the ending quite a bit. It is subtly built up throughout the game. You start to notice that the various people are hostile to each other and special doors in each area. Then when you reach the end and are given your final goal, it all falls into place. Seeing the changes in the otherwise mostly static world is a great sense of achievement as what you're doing has a big impact on the areas in the game.

Neutral:
Most of the time Chants of Sennaar gives you a good amount of clues for every letter. There were a couple of times when I got stuck due to stupidity, but then there were times when I felt that there weren't enough clues given, so I had to resort to brute forcing my existing guesses which is never ideal.
The main matching mechanic that helps you beat the game could've been given a better introduction, but that's a very minor nitpick all things considered, you get the hang of it fairly quickly.

Regarding the story, I do wish the exile entity was given a bit more explanation. I think it was created by the chosen ones themselves while separated from the rest of the people but it gained control over them. It wasn't made clear exactly why the tower would be destroyed if the people weren't reunited.

Cons:
There was one time I had to look up how to unlock a specific page due to not realizing I could move a minecart through an interaction menu instead of by just moving it outside of that menu.

Killzone 2?

I'm currently reading the light novel Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 2 Volume 1 and I'm already halfway as it's pretty short. I was originally planning to read Warbreaker but I started up the anime adaptation of Ascendance of a Bookworm with my brother, so I decided to continue reading that series instead.

I finished reading Assassin's Quest a week ago, but since I haven't posted my review here yet, here it is:

Pros:
Assassin's Quests story feels more directed and less slow-paced than its counterparts because it's a travel story. Fitz is always working towards one singular goal, whether it is killing Regal or making his way to Verity. The journey doesn't get stale either as there is a lot of progression with party members leaving and joining throughout. Near the end, you also start to get a much better sense of the scale of the world-building as some of the mysteries behind the intricacies of the skill are unveiled. The ending gives a nice glimpse into what happens after the main story. It makes me curious how the Tawny Man trilogy will pick up where this one left off.

Assassin's Quest nailed picking up after the previous book's cliffhanger ending. The unique writing style at the beginning makes it feel wholly separate from the rest of the book and immediately gets you invested in how that section will turn out.

Neutral:
Compared to the two other books, the third one's final act shocking twist, didn't feel as impactful, since it was over pretty quickly and since some other similarly big things had happened right before it. If the moment had been given more room to breathe, it could've felt more epic than it ended up being.

Another beaten game in less than a week! I truly am on a roll. Maybe I'll at least be able to beat more games than I ended up beating in 2021. Next, I might finally start P4G or I'll play another short-ish game until my brother is ready to play it as well.

June 21st - Super Metroid - 11h 43m - (5/10) Main+ - Beat the game and got 66% item collection.

Here's my review:

Pros:
Super Metroid's last sequence in the final area is pretty cool and surprising. First, you get introduced to the big Metroid, when it depletes almost all of your HP and then when you think you've lost against the boss fight with Mother Brain, the big Metroid comes to your rescue. It's a pretty cool moment, although if I knew the story implications behind it, it would've probably been more shocking.
The music in the game is also pretty good, but it's not all that surprising, since this is Nintendo after all.

Neutral:
Super Metroid guides the player where to go and what to do next pretty well most of the time. However, there was one moment where I had no idea where to progress because I missed one place I could progress and wasted a lot of time going back and forth over and over.
You can also feel the game's age and the SNES limited button layout in the game's controls. Aiming directionally is inconsistent and you can't aim directionally without also moving forward. Wall jumping is also very precise although I feel that it is somewhat by design as it's a technique you are taught later in the game. I still wish it was a bit more lenient though. Sections, where you had to use the grapple hook in Maridia, were also quite frustrating due to the limited angles Samus can aim in. Returning to your normal shot after switching to missiles, means you have to mash the plus button to cycle through your weapons, which is very impractical in the middle of a battle when you'll likely be trying to do so. My last gripe with the controls is that the space jump didn't always seem to activate when I pressed the jump button, even though I think it should. When you're not fighting with the inconsistencies in the controls, they aren't too bad.
You gain quite a lot of power over the course of the game, which is fitting for any Metroidvania, although I didn't feel the increase in power and strength as much as I had hoped, due to the aforementioned annoyances with the controls.

Cons:
The worst part of the Super Metroid though was easily the difficulty curve between the bosses. Kraid was a bit too tough, requiring precise platforming. It took me a good amount of tries to finally beat him. Phantoom was a good level of difficulty, he wasn't as difficult as Kraid and I managed to beat him on my first try. Draygon on the other hand was a complete joke. All you had to do was grapple one thing and he instantly dies. Then we have Ridley. He has an absurdly difficulty attack pattern and a shit ton of HP. I had to fight him many times over and the only reason I eventually won was because I used a half-cheese strategy during one of his attacks. Mother Brain once again returned to a fitting level of difficulty for a final boss although maybe she could've been a smidge harder.

I think I'll finally be playing Persona 4 Golden, next month (will probably start it before the end of this month already. I think it would be a great game to have for the book club, so I'll nominate it. (Even if it is a tad on the long side.)

Luckily this doesn't affect me as much. I can still get invested in the games I play. Don't get me wrong there are still times I push through to finish bad games, but those are mostly for established series that I'm otherwise a fan of and at least in those cases I can say why I didn't enjoy those games. I guess it really depends on how strong my thoughts are on a specific game. The times when I have nothing to say have been dwindling and are more on the short mediocre games, where it doesn't have enough time to leave an impression on me.

I used to be a really hardcore multi-player focused gamer. When I was in high-school, I was on a CoD team, so much so made a few bucks from our montages. When I was in college, I’d stay up till 5am most nights grinding out Siege/Apex/CoD/OW.. the whole shabang, with friends. I pretty much never finished single-player stories, though I was always interested in them. I could never dedicate the time, or have the patience to follow through. I would purchase games, play them, and put them down within hours. Always been something I struggled with.

Fast forward to 2023, all my buddies are grown up and most abandoned gaming as a hobby. Multi-player gaming began to get stale, and I was left staring at a lobby screen, doomscrolling on my phone. I hated it, feeling as if my hobby was slipping through my fingers. Now, I’m lucky enough to have a partner that also games, and she is mostly single-player focused. The more I asked her about her gaming habits; The fun she had, the memories she created, by herself… It all sounded borderline whimsical. This had me thinking of switching up my ways. So I did.

I had seen HowLongToBeat just through Google searches when browsing completion times for possible games I’d buy, but seeing the options for logging playtime, reviews, backlog, the forum… It was way more than I had expected. It reminded me of the mid 2000’s forums, what general social media has mostly replaced. I loved it. I was entranced, so to speak. That night, I logged nearly all the games I could find that I’ve touched, and every game forward I vowed to complete in full and catalog, or bare minimum give the ol’ college try before retiring. That was October 2023, and as of June 2024 I’ve kept that promise to myself and completed at least a couple games a month. These days, I basically only play single-player games, and I couldn’t be happier. Of course I’ll hop on with the occasional friend, but pushing 30, those days are few and far between. I actually would not have continued gaming as hard as I have without HowLongToBeat helping me commit, and discover the absolute joy of single-player. Nowadays, I get a lot of enjoyment from being in the discussion of newly released games, or even just adding me thoughts to old ones.

This website is truly special. Kinda my love letter. I’d like to hear how ya’ll started your account, and why.

That's a great story, always nice to hear people enjoying the forums and site as a whole as much as I do. This community truly is something unique compared to the ones elsewhere nowadays.

I created my account because I wanted to keep track of my backlog. There were times when I didn't know what to play and I had to go through my various libraries to see if I could find something. It was quite cumbersome. These days I have everything logged on HLTB so it's effortless to check. That was around January 2020.
The main reasons I've continued to be active is due to the stats and the community. I love looking at the stats for my completions and comparing them. As I already said, the community here is great, it's so much more positive compared to communities you see on regular social media's. I can just share my gaming progress and participate in fun challenges like the gaming challenge and game of the month. Every once in a while, there are also interesting posts like these where I can share my opinions.

Almost beat another game in a week from my last completion, maybe I'm finally picking up some steam again. Although my new strategy for balancing studying and free time is making a big difference. Btw, I would recommend anyone play Ghost Trick for the story alone, it's that good.

June 15th - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 15h 27m - (100%) 9/10 - Beat the game and beat all the challenges.

Here's my review:

Pros:
Ghost Trick's greatest strength is its story. It has a similar amount of plot twists as Ace Attorney, but it does them much better. For one, this game has no filler, everything ties back to the main plot and two the plot twists are much closer together due to the game's short playtime. Near the end of the game, you get an earth-shattering plot twist that gets your mind racing in almost every chapter. This keeps the game compelling the whole way through. Both these factors I mentioned originate from Ghost Trick's very unique storytelling structure, which is that the entire game takes place over one night. It immediately hooks the player from a storytelling perspective, because "How much can really happen in one night?".

Neutral:
Seeing the deaths play out and then trying to stop them is fun to have as the main gameplay loop. There's enough gameplay variety in between the main gameplay sequences that keep it fresh and exciting. There was one instance, however, where I missed one crucial object I could manipulate, costing me a lot of time. I eventually figured it out, but I got quite frustrated while doing so. The section where you help Jowd escape the prison was also quite tedious since most of it was waiting around for the guard patterns. Normally the waiting isn't an issue, but this one wasn't on the 4-minute timer that most of the gameplay sequences are, which made a significant difference.

I also enjoyed most of the bonus content in the game. It's always nice to have a built-in achievement system for Switch and I'll always appreciate an art viewer and music player in games. However the addition of Ghost Puzzles is just a way to pad out the playtime for 100% completionists, they are essentially a more bearable form of Professor Layton's slidey puzzles. Luckily that meant that I didn't have to look at a guide to complete them, but they were still quite tedious to complete. Nothing would've been lost if these had been omitted altogether.

So far this month I've gotten Inmost, as a recommendation from another HLTB user on the Discord server. I also got Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and We Love Katamari Damacy Reroll + Royal Reverie on the Switch since they were on sale. I wanted to play Ghost Trick and I enjoyed the first Katamari Damacy a good amount, so I decided to buy the sequel, because why not?

I ended up enjoying this game more than I thought I would. The gameplay is very well designed, as you can see me go into detail in my review.

June 6th - Azure Reflections - 15h 6m - (Main+) 8/10 - 1cc'd story, extra and boss rush with every character on normal mode. Got 23/39 achievements.

Here's my review:

Pros:
Azure Reflections is a nice beginner-friendly Touhou fangame. I was more invested than I thought I would be and I don't play shmups often. The game has a very variable difficulty curve. If you fully run out of lives, you can use multiple continues to keep going on higher difficulties or you can make the game harder by choosing not to use them and do a 1cc run. You can also choose not to use spell cards or to capture all spell cards in one run. It adds a lot of replay value to the game. That's not to even mention the extra modes you can unlock like the extra stage and boss rush. Even if you beat those, playing on higher difficulties is rewarded with more options and items in the database section of the menu. Even ascetic mode is rewarded as each boss gets two new attacks which adds to the replay value even further. Even if you're struggling to make progress, to ensure you're always making at least some progress, you can equip accessories you buy with points you earn by playing the game. These accessories make the game easier and you can tailor them to your play style, adding further strategic potential to the game. Speaking of strategy, it's fun tackling a boss and slowly but surely figuring out their attack pattern and finding a strategy to beat them consistently.

Neutral:
The music in the game is great, but it does blend into the background a bit due to how you're always focusing on dodging the attacks of bosses and enemies. The main story is quite mysterious at the start however you figure out the main reason behind it rather quickly. The game is rather lighthearted and has a lot of humor, which does improve the story a bit. But overall it's nothing spectacular.