Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition (Xbox Series X/S) - August 15, 2024 - New Game +. Medium difficulty. Collected all of the Upgrade Orbs. Fully upgraded the character and all of the weapons. Completed all of the Challenges, except the New Game + ones. - REPLAY

Doom (1993) (Xbox One) - August 18, 2024 - Ultra-Violence difficulty. 100% Kills and Secrets in every level, except E4M3 and E4M7 which have glitched secrets only reachable with Noclip. All secret levels found and completed. - REPLAY

Silent Hill (PlayStation) - August 25, 2024 - 3h 37m 39s - Time was taken from the Results screen, so it may not be entirely accurate. - "Next Fear". Hard difficulty. Bad+ Ending. Saves: 29. Continues: 0. Items: 170/204 (+5). Rank: 48. - REPLAY

Grand Theft Auto III (PlayStation 2) - August 26, 2024 - 100% Completed. - REPLAY

Happy gaming for September!

Did you play GTA III growing up/when it first came out? I've tried really hard to get started with it but find myself always getting impatient with its mission design

Her Story and I cede my turn if I'm right :)

You are correct, so someone else can go!

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones – Active hater of the difficulty spikes in this game.

Did you go Ephraim's route? I know for myself this was one of the easier games in the series but I remember once the split happened it definitely escalated in challenge, particularly the boat level. I think I've heard Erika's route is not as hard (I still need to go back and replay someday to play that route myself).

Epharim's! A little past the halfway point I was just stuck, and it was designed to be two back-to-back levels so I couldn't back out and grind. If I were to pick it up again I'd over-level everyone and then blast through the rest of it

Abzû – Nintendo Switch – 90%
I adored the environment design, music, and story of this game. "Short and sweet" condensed into a 3-hour experience, likely to become something I revisit annually.

Demon's Souls – PS5 – 85%
Clunky controls in one of the most realized environments I've seen on the PS5. I loved running around as a mage in this game, and did not realize I could have a power fantasy fulfilled in a Souls game.

Her Story – Mac – 85%
Love a good knowledge-based game that tries to get you to be creative with your solutions. I have over five pages of notes on a spreadsheet chronicling the timeline of the events of this game.

Pokémon Platinum Version – Emulated Nintendo DS – 85%
That sweet spot of challenging, hold-handing, and letting you go off and do your thing. Everything moves a little too slowly for my liking, but in my quest to play something from every generation, this has been my favorite so far.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Emulated Sega Genesis – 80%
This is the first time I've clicked with a Sonic game and wanted more without feeling obligated to finish it. It's a wonderful experience, with platforming, stage design, and music more slick than the first, and I'm excited to continue with the series...until I absolutely should no longer be excited to continue with the series.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider – PS5 – 75%
The best the visuals have been in this series up until this point, but it has a story that robs the protagonist of the nuanced choices Corvo and Emily got to make.

Disc Room – Nintendo Switch – 75%
Fun for the most part with an interesting, wordless story, but I found it got repetitive towards the end with rooms that did not have clear goals.

de Blob – Nintendo Switch – 55%
A game from my childhood was on sale for under $10 USD, so I had to buy it. It got exhausting after the first level, which is also what I remember from my childhood.

Lil' Guardsman – Mac – 55%
If Papers, Please, wasn't a good game and had nothing of substance to say but still had blocks of text, it would be Lil' Guardsman. The voice acting was great, though.

And my retirements:
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones – Active hater of the difficulty spikes in this game.
Kirby Super Star – Just lost interest after the first world or two, but it has very nice visuals!

Midnight Protocol???

I started the Switch remake or remaster whatever of Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. It's been years since I played the original, though I've watched it. So far my thoughts are: ooo fun new look for the beginning, yay same font, why is the ground so glossy and reflective, the NPCs and partners are more expressive now! and more and/or easier to see details like cute pictures on the walls in people's houses.

I'm in the Petalburg currently.

And I still have replays of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Final Fantasy VI PR going.

I absolutely loved this remake- they really doubled down on the soundtrack and expressive animations so experiencing it for the first time in over a decade and following the story for real felt so rewarding. But I felt the exact same way about the floor- most of the time it wasn't even "metal," why was it so shiny???

Zelda has that whole vibe that the Kingdom Hearts series does where it felt like I would enjoy it more if I grew up with the franchise all though it gets this vibe from me for different reasons.

Funnily enough I also don't like Witcher 3 but I do think Cyberpunk 2077 has pretty solid gameplay and the fact that it's shorter also helps too.

I want to play Persona 5 one of these days but apparently from what I heard, the first 10 hours is basically a tutorial.

This actually encapsulates how my brothers and I are towards these franchises- those of us who have played Legend of Zelda have been playing every game since 2006, and if you play Pokémon you were probably playing it in 2003. For us it seems that the nostalgic attachment really improves the patience you have with these series that are 20-30+ years old and not substantially improving.

I'll nominate Devil May Cry!

Ah ok my mistake. I was just surprised that a 5 year old game was still selling at it's original release price, with no permanent price reduction.

I don't think Nintendo cares for a "permanent price reduction" 😔 Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are both 7 years old and sometimes go on sale so maybe we can wait till 2026 for Link's Awakening to be sold for $10 less?

Personally I try to get the digital game vouchers for their first-party games, though that means you can't get a physical cartridge, and have to spend $100 to save $20...

I've been trying a bunch of new series lately, and for the first time since 2019 when I tried and gave up on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, I beat a FromSoftware game: Demon's Souls. I feel like I finally "get" the appeal of these types of games now that I've successfully gotten through one of them.

But then I started thinking about my attempts at Final Fantasy and the older GTA games, and how they don't seem to click for me. Is there a series or franchise that everyone else likes which you can't seem to get into? Did you wait or power through whatever was blocking you, and eventually get hooked?

My first Game of the Month with you all- happy to have gotten to play this, especially with Echoes of Wisdom coming out next month!

This was a replay for me, I got it when it first came out in 2019, and back then I did not connect to it at all and had to follow a walkthrough. Since then, my brain's frontal lobe has actually developed so I was able to logically think through puzzles and mark the map to take notes. There is so much joy in the way this game looks and feels, how it wants you to leave no stone unturned and is happy to reward you for it. Playing it now made me realize that the combat is only difficult or that you're only lost if you're not trying to actually engage with what's in front of you, and experiencing Link's Awakening for the first time like this easily puts it into my top ten for this year.

However, the performance issues, notably when there's too many particle effects and enemies on the screen, are infrequent yet jarring when they occur. I also felt like I was unfairly being pushed off cliffs, as an enemy would hit me and Link would slowly move off the side instead of immediately getting knocked over. It was like the game was still registering that he had gotten hit, but it was too long after making contact for it to have felt fair. Lastly, the long fetch quest at the end where you learn how to get to the end was unintuitive and unnecessarily demanding- there are too many people involved in getting you the magnifying glass, and this was one of two puzzles that I had to look up to figure out. Overall, what was unsavory about this game was infrequent, but when they appeared my patience eroded quickly.

I had a more productive month than I thought!

07/03: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins | 70% | Realized this is when we start seeing the aesthetic and musical variety in Super Mario games, though Mario still isn't as fun to control as he is in contemporary games.

07/03: Pyre | 80% | Surprisingly clicked with high fantasy MOBA basketball, but there is too much lore in this game. Enjoyed seeing how this sets the foundation for Supergiant to make Hades.

07/06: Mega Man | 60% | Lots of bullshit and unclear instructions for how to play, as the standard with many NES games.

07/17: Kirby's Dream Land 2 | 75% | Having Kirby ride giant beasts seemed kind of superfluous but I enjoy seeing how every entry builds on the last.

07/18: Pokémon Legends: Arceus | 85% | Didn't think I'd replay this but I had the itch to do it this year knowing its sequel is coming next year. It's...much easier than I remember? But the writing is just as bad.

07/19: Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures | 50% | Felt like playing a licensed cartoon GBA game from my childhood...and this one isn't very good. Very nostalgic for me, at the very least.

07/25: Cult of the Lamb | 80% | Similar to Legends: Arceus, replaying Cult of the Lamb was much easier this time around than before. It still has performance issues, and its DLC was free but it's inconsequential, and it kind of makes me wish I didn't replay it.

07/31: God of War | 80% | I played the 2018 game in 2018, but wanted to get into the series since my brother is a big fan. This has a lot of slashy combat and personality, but its UX isn't very great and there were moments with the puzzles, platforming, and timed challenges, that were frustrating due to unclear hit boxes, lack of affordances, and lack of time that made them annoying instead of difficult.

Just reread Song of Achilles...so now I'm going to need to play Hades again

Checking in since the year is halfway over! Definitely put in some work and got through over half of my original list!
- Hitman 1-3
- Baldur's Gate 3
- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
- NG+ for Marvel's Spider-Man 2

I'll also start on Demon's Souls at the end of this month! However I tried The Forgotten City and it didn't click so I'll pick it up another time, and I don't have a device to play Hades II on yet! And I, like many of us, am still waiting on Silksong.

If I could add some new goals (since I'm going through faster than I thought I would) besides Demon's Souls, it'd probably be:
- 100% for Pokémon Legends: Arceus
- Final Fantasy X
- Baldur's Gate
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Stardew Valley

Got through a good number of games this past month:
SUMMERHOUSE – Mac – 6/2/24: Cute building designer like The Sims or the Happy Paradise Planner DLC for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but without any sense of direction to keep you going for more than an hour. Quite relaxing when you are playing it, though.
Storyteller – Mac – 6/3/24: Wonderful logic puzzles that have you working backwards from your intended solution. It felt tiring and nonsensical by the end, but it was fun to finally get to try it.
Bayonetta – PS4 – 6/4/24: Clutching my pearls the entire time I was playing through this, though I don't think it owns how stupid it is like Devil May Cry 5.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening – Nintendo Switch – 6/12/24: Playing this after my brain has developed mroe was very different compared to how I played this when I was 21. Puzzle design just clicked with me this time, though the final quest is a prolonged fetch quest with too much open-endedness.
Donkey Kong Country – Emulated GBA – 6/13/24: Demands a lot of perfection from you, but once you get going it's hard to put down. Soundtrack is also killer.
Super Mario Land – Emulated Game Boy – 6/18/24: A joy to experience for the first time, and everyone is so animated compared to Super Mario Bros., but Mario's sprite seems to be lackluster.
Batman: The Enemy Within – PS4 – 6/20/24: Way better than the original Telltale story, with better quick time events as well, but its story could've been better streamlined and Troy Baker isn't the best voice for Batman.
Castlevania – Emulated NES – 6/25/24: A lotta bullshit but pretty rewarding if you can get the hang of it.
Super Mario World – Emulated SNES – 6/28/24: Took a while to get used to these controls, and again there is a lotta bullshit, but I was shocked to see how much of this game looked and felt like a modern Super Mario game.

I've been thinking on this for a minute now- if I were to summarize why I play video games in three reasons, it would to (1) find the joy and thrill that I experienced as a child. This is the "pure fun" that you're referring to, that we likely all experienced the first time we played a video game as a kid. I'd also say that (2) the satisfaction of feeling good at something, or maybe just winning, is also a thrill, but a fleeting, short-term feeling.

Do I generally want to "escape" as well? I try not to frame it like this, that video games or media is an escape from the real-world, because it often tends to be this roundabout way of saying "I don't want to see POC/LGBTQ people/women and the struggles they experience that I may corroborate in my media." However, this anti-escapism is actually why I want to play video games and what keeps me going.

I think art in creating and experiencing it is a part of human experience, and always has been. In the same way that one reads books and watches movies and listens to music to learn about themselves, people, the world, I think video games could easily fit into one of these mediums that illuminates something for us.

Are all video games art, though? I think to a degree, yes, all video games undergo some sort of artistic thought process that's then tampered with because of general workflow problems, hardware/software restrictions, or business decisions that arise from living in a capitalist world. But there's certain stories and feelings that can only come from the video game medium. Its interactivity and immersion that so many of us seek give video games the power to elicit empathy on a level that no other contemporary medium can. So why do I play video games? Perhaps to find greater meaning, not only in myself but in life!

Honestly, for me some games are just get through, others captivate me enough (I love New Vegas as well, spent a month and a half recently playing through it again just cause I could). In my opinion, and how I do it, if a game clicks with me I give it more time, backlog cleaning be dammed, its a hobby, not a second job. Actually once I went in with that mentality, I cleared more games and found new games I love. Just try to take it easy and the clearing will come by itself. In the end I doubt Ill ever clear the backlog, but thats fine, the experiences I get along the way will be more than worth it.

Have a good one dear reader.

"Try to take it easy" is a great way of putting it- unless you're making a career of playing as many video games as possible, just do what feels good or interests you and maybe think about why it makes you feel that way.

I think about this all the time, and actually posted something in the same vein earlier this year! Last year someone asked me what a game was about that I played a month prior, and I didn't remember anything about it. I felt embarrassed by that, and after some introspection I realized I was, as you brought up, just playing video games to say I played XYZ.

What I've found works for me is frequently stopping and asking myself: "am I enjoying myself?" and "is this impacting me in some way?" If a game has me answering yes to either, then I'll see it through as far as I can.

However, I've found that now I'm also really impatient when I feel that something is wasting my time. Bad writing? Retire. Poorly designed UX? Retire. Unfair difficulty spikes? Retire. While I don't like giving up on these experiences which can get really expensive, I've found I enjoy gaming more overall, play a wider variety of games, and have a better understanding of my personal taste. It sounds weird to always be thinking about if you're having fun, but honestly I prefer it to sinking 30 hours into something to regret it in the end.

Some of my favorites, though I'd like to add a caveat for these that having a 3D open world that isn't level-based often means you aren't as pressured to experience a story:

Level-Based "Open Worlds" (i.e. big levels/areas)
– Kirby and the Forgotten Land
– Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
– Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2
– Super Mario Odyssey

Traditional Open Worlds (i.e. seamless areas)
– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
– Marvel's Spider-Man 2
– Ghost of Tsushima
– God of War
– The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
– Red Dead Redemption 2
– Grand Theft Auto V (I know you called out GTA as not pressuring you to complete the story, but I could argue that all of the games in this part of the list don't pressure you. I'd still like to add them because even though these go at a pace you set, they're something I can't not recommend!)

Honestly, if I were to give something 10/10 it would probably be for less than five games. Perhaps Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Hades, but I don't feel as strongly about anything else. As I've started engaging more critically with video games, I've found I don't have a lot of patience for things like bad UX/unfair difficulty spikes/time-wasting activities/poorly mapped controls, and thus my enjoyment, even in experiences that I love, gets eroded pretty fast. I think this just means I feel there's great and even amazing video games, but it's rare for something to land as perfect.

Do I think it's strange when I see people rate something as 10/10 and have nothing to say about why they feel that way? In a way, yes, because I don't like reading reviews that are just "the XYZ is so good" without any further explanation as to why.

At the same time, though, if someone is handing out 10/10's left and right because they're having a great time with what they're playing, really connecting with and loving their experiences, I won't rain on their parade. But I think my questioning this comes from a place of trying to empathize with them. I'd love to feel the childhood joy and patience of playing even the shittiest Game Boy game, and want to know what speaks to people.

So is it a red flag if I see someone rating every game as perfect? Not necessarily, but if they could talk about why, I'd have more appreciation and respect for their ratings.

Daily Challenge - 2024-06-01
Score: 144 / 300
🟥🟥⬛ 🟩 = 27 | Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver
🟥🟧🟦 🟩 = 70 | R | Spider-Man 2
🟥🟥🟩 🟧 = 47 | S | Bravely Default II

This is my second-highest score playing this game 😅 I feel like I play games rather quickly so it's hard for me to get these correctly

I'm playing GTA 3 right now and this might be an unpopular opinion but it doesn't really hold up. It's a prime example of why I usually don't go back to play earlier games in a series I've started and would rather start at the beginning. After having played 4 and 5, 3 is just worse in every way. No GPS is really difficult for someone as directionally challenged as me (-1 for gameplay) and the blank slate protagonist has no voice acting (-1 for story). Those are the two most important aspects in a game for me. It's also generally just really hard too with limited waypoints, health, and cars that blow up at the slightest inconvenience. I'm about 10 hours in and exploring the second island right now so I'll try to finish it but for the most part, it hasn't been a great experience.

Completely understand how you feel, everyone talks about what a great game GTA 3 is because of its freedom in how you beat missions but that doesn't make up for how its world, gameplay, and story have aged so poorly. The remastered trilogy should have really worked to improve these games but like you said, the technology behind its checkpoints and vehicle durability can make it frustrating.

I played more than I thought I would this month! Honestly some really great experiences all around:

Pokémon Colosseum for Emulated GameCube – 70%
I only played XD: Gale of Darkness growing up, so this was a new experience. It's a slog and its story is messy, but I need to respect that early 2000's edge and grit. I appreciate that they were really trying to push open-world Pokémon games narratively around this time, and it's not something we really see again until Legends: Arceus.

Infernax for PS4 – 85%
This game is so tasteful with its pixel art and killer 16-bit soundtrack. While its protagonist is intentionally clunky and stiff, this aspect really plays into how much of a tank he can be, and I really loved the challenges and monsters that kept coming through. Timing windows in platforming segments and lack of checkpoints does add difficulty, but not in the same, organic way that its combat and Metroidvania aspects do.

Wedding Witch for Mac – 75%
Definitely a degenerate choice this month, but I'm surprised by how solid its gameplay is? It takes what works from Slay the Spire and Hades and mashes it all together into a surprisingly solid (for what I expected) experience.

Ratchet & Clank for Emulated PS2 – 70%
My first Ratchet & Clank game was the remake of this from 2016, so I don't have a childhood attachment to it. It's pretty frustrating to control and the visual fidelity of the time/Ratchet's character really holds it back. Overall, it was pretty frustrating to play, and I found myself using save states over and over because its checkpoints and health system aren't very kind.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch – 90%
"Beaten" as in started a new island and got K.K. Slider to visit, I'm actually still playing this one! With the Happy Home Paradise DLC, this is a solid Animal Crossing experience that was done dirty by lack of variety and being released too early. Had all of this come out at once sometime in 2021 with more to do in the base game, more people might still be playing.

Papers, Please for Mac – 80%
Reliable as always, and I've always enjoyed the morally gray tones that Lucas Pope baked into this game. It can lose its charm because of some redundancy after the first 90 minutes, but I always find playing through to the end a rewarding experience.

Pokémon Leafgreen Version for Emulated Game Boy Advance – 75%
I like Gen III a lot more than Gen I, I'm sorry. It has better AI, artwork, and music- perhaps one of the best remakes ever made for its time. That being said, everything about this game moves so slowly compared to something like Legends: Arceus.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for Nintendo Switch – 90%
I kept telling myself I wouldn't beat this game in a week, but here I am, a week after release, talking about how I beat it this month. Everything about this game is so lovingly made- its art direction, music, and UX improvements make this my new definitive way to experience this game. And while its narrative is no longer able to surprise me, I still found myself getting emotional during the final battle. This game will always have a special place in my heart- the experience was so rewarding that I'll probably take a victory lap with it sometime next year.

Friendly reminder that this is anti-consumer behavior and we should all be making more of a stink over it than we are.

Highly agreed on this, many companies in the industry have been seeing how far they can go, closing stores and shutting down studios, demanding archival/preservation platforms like Vimm's take down their games, attempting to weasel ads into every experience, telling influencers that they're not allowed to be critical of games in the terms and conditions, claiming we should get used to not truly owning the digital games we buy, requiring us to store our information on their insecure servers to play their games. I could go on.

It's a great time to be a gamer with all of the options, old games that are so accessible, and upcoming releases, but they're protecting their bottom line above all else. How can we begin to protect ourselves?