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I finally finished Turbo Overkill. After being disappointed years ago by the Early Access Build, this game has seen a MASSIVE improvement in it's full release. Basically, all the stuff I complained about like unfair checkpoints, overwhelming difficulty on the easiest setting, bad story in Episode 1, bugs that make you literally lose game mechanics and inconsistent design flaws are all fixed up and the game is now a blast to play. I haven't had this much of a adrenaline rush since Doom Eternal came out in 2020. Now, I don't think it's the best of the Boomer Shooters and DUSK is a MUCH more consistent game in every category for me, but this is still exciting and thrilling. Extremely fast and fluent movement with managing weapons, mechanics and upgrades make this an addictive gameplay loop to begin with. I loved making Johnny into a badass and for the story, it's better in some respects but the amount of obnoxious profanity made this feel like it was written by a kid who screams slurs in COD Multiplayer. I did have voice acting off to alleviate this and focus more on the gameplay, so my rating probably would have gone down if I had it on. But everything here is awesome. Banger soundtrack, excellent gunplay and gameplay loop, it feels original while taking influence from other FPS Games and doing their own twist on things and it's a fast and frantic experience that is easily the best game I think I played all year. It's not perfect, but it sure as hell is a real treat.

Overall, I think I'm going to give it a 9/10. Finally great to play something awesome after spending much of 2024 playing disappointing and crap games. I hope to talk more about it in a backlog blog post so we'll see if I get to that.

So I have finished Merchant of the Skies, and it was a real treat to play. It's a fairly simple management game where gameplay solely consists of clicking on your next destination and sifting through menus. You try to buy low and sell high, take guild commissions to procure resources to turn a profit, and all of this is made incredibly easy since the game handily notes every location with prices. Then you use those profits to upgrade your ship, buy islands, and invest materials and manpower into them to get advanced resources. All of this combines into a very cozy and satisfying gameplay loop that could get repetitive due to its relative simplicity but the game is only about ten hours long, so that never becomes a problem. The only complaint I could offer is that navigating menus could have used more QOL features since that is the majority of what you're doing, but even that is just a minor complaint. The game is fairly light on story, mostly just lore bits about the world that you get while you are trying to accomplish some of the major milestones that the game has you chasing.

In the end, Merchant of the Skies is a simple, short, and very satisfying little management game that I could recommend to those who like these sorts of games, and to those who like seeing big numbers go up.

I've just beaten Hollow Knight in 37h for the third time. First two times are already a few years back and this time I've gotten much further/achieved more which is nice.
I completed 107% of the game (112% is the total). Last time I did only 93%.

I got 22 additional Steam achievements in comparison to my first two completions.

I'm especially proud of Masked (get all masks), Keen Hunter (Record all of Hallownest's creatures; just a huge undertaking) and Fool (Complete the Trial of Fool). Hardest was definitely The Trial of Fools. Holy shit did I try that often. And I did cheese the boss fight (weaversong while staying on the wall).

I did not beat Radiance. I tried twice and then before I could try a third time I failed to nail strike the Hollow Knight and instead my Dreamshild hit him and the normal boss fight continued. Oh well who know's if I would have beaten Radiance. I'm usually not an achievement hunter and quickly run out of patience.

The only game that I have ever beaten three times. Such a fantastic game, my all time favorite.

So I have finished Industria, and it was pretty meh. It's an atmosphere-heavy (though not story-heavy) FPS game. This means that combat here is not the focus of the game, it's neither high-octane nor high-impact. It functions but that's about it. The main focus here is the atmosphere, as the game mostly takes place in this abandoned post-apocalyptic city. Since the game doesn't talk much this atmosphere kind of works, but this is about the only thing the game does right. The story starts pretty quickly and doesn't explain much despite the fact that it has a fully-voiced talking protagonist who actually has a better understanding of the events than us. However, with little explanation and establishing of the stakes, it's hard to feel much of anything about our protagonist's journey. The game leaves much of the narrative to our imagination and honestly, what little it does say, it's not hard to guess the rest. On top of that, the game is barely 3 hours long, which is extremely short even by shooter standards, and as I mentioned, most of it is spent in moody silence in service of the atmosphere, so the story doesn't go anywhere. I just really didn't buy into anything concerning the narrative, it's kind of a disjointed mess.

All in all, I can't recommend Industria to anyone unless you have nothing better to do during an afternoon and got the game for free from somewhere (like I did). The atmosphere is nice but everything else is a mess.

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 finished Half-Life 2: Rock 24 which is another mod for HL2 and it certainly had some really good things about it. The concept is really solid as it takes place on this decaying, collapsing prison built on a Island Rock which just made the game more immersive. The story was also nice and felt like a side story after Episode Two and I was surprised the mod made some jabs at contemporary gaming at the time. Some of the design is too obtuse and other times it's hand holding too much as well. The game also had some REALLY bad glitches in the second level where you're in your prison cell and the bars and other things like boxes pop in and out of existence.

Don't have much to say but I liked it enough. I'll give it a 7/10.

So I have finished Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 for a second time, and while it was still fun, there won't be a third. The core gameplay with the great space battles and light management is still great, playing the game is still fun. However, while it may seem like the game has three campaigns, it is more accurate to say that it has one campaign that can be played with three different factions. Playing the Necron campaign was pretty much the same as the imperial one. Of course, the flair and your reasons differ, as you are playing a different race, but what you do remains much the same. You just conquer the galaxy map and defeat the other races, and this could get somewhat repetitive during your first go, for the second time, it just isn't enough. The events pretty much follow the same beats too, such as the pre-scripted invasion of Tyrannid fleets. The narrative wasn't the pinnacle of storytelling even in the imperial campaign but that one at least managed to establish proper stakes, it had focus, but the Necron one failed to engage me on any level. It was quite dull narratively.

All in all, Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 is still a pretty good game that managed to improve much on the first game, but as to whether it's worth more than one walkthrough, I'm not so sure.

Finished Doom (1993) since the game just got updated alongside Doom II with a bunch of new Episodes and some of the older ones two in one complete package. I rarely give 10/10s nowadays but god dammit, this is a perfect game. I absolutely love this game to death. Not only is it insanely influential and had people begging overnight for more of these games but it's a mix of all these things that make it excel at what it is. ID's Philosophy consisted of a setup but a lack of plot only in the background, it featured timeless but simplistic game design that made maps and puzzles never that cryptic or even frustrating to play through, they set up numerous difficulties which not only ups player damage but also how many enemies there are on said difficulty mode and guns that are brilliant, sound amazing and are extremely aggressive. Also adding to the fact of finding keys to unlock doors, numerous powerups along the levels and tons of secrets to help you get through the game, they've essentially built the building blocks for a masterpiece that others would imitate or attempt to enhance throughout the mid-90's. I think the reason so many Boomer Shooters fall apart nowadays is because looking back on Doom, that Philosophy ID had made the game SO MUCH stronger. Everything here is a perfect blend of ingredients. I have almost nothing bad to say about Doom. If only the Philosophy of other Boomer Shooter devs were much stronger, we would had been thrown masterpiece after masterpiece out of the gate when DUSK came out and dominated the niche. Sadly, many people are just copying Doom's graphics style, arsenal, enemies, and structure carelessly which is why I got so burnt out on the genre last year.

Doom is a masterpiece. A full 10/10 and the best game I've played all year. I didn't bother with Episode 4 because I thought Episode 3 ended the game perfectly to set up a sequel. Anyways, awesome game and will talk more about my thoughts on the backlog blog.

I replayed Forza Horizon 3.... again. But I'm probably still going to play more after this considering I want to at least do every event and try to unlock more midnight battles and street races, not to mention replay the Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels Expansions again. This time I played it via PC since I bought this game digitally a long time ago and my god, it's so nice to have 144 FPS compared to the 30 on Xbox.

I mean, what can I say that I haven't already said? It's my go to comfort game/series. Every time I pick this game up I'm expected to feel great summer vibes and all around positive nature from the game and it's world and I still am impressed that it manages to do that even to this day. Okay, a couple things suck as I never liked the Bucket List challenges and doing PR Stunts/Skill Chains mainly result in a NPC driver on the same road you are on that shouldn't be there crashing into you and pissing all over your attempt. The majority of problems would be fixed in Horizon 4 (Buy now before it's delisted) but overall the game still rules. It starts you off slow with events but soon you'll progress to have major festival upgrades, a great garage of vehicles, loads of money with wheel spins with the bonus addition of rare cars, not to mention the array of events, PR Stunts, Street Races, Barn Finds, Midnight Battles, Blueprint Races and Championships you can do in this game. It's not like Horizon 5 where it just farts out every single event all at once on the map. To sum it up though, brilliant soundtrack, graphics have aged really well for a 2016 game, majority of cars control like a dream, the quality of all this content is pretty high and the game just makes me feel good inside. It's certainly a mood booster.

I will have to give it a new updated score of 8/10. I listed my major complaints (And trust me, those two complaints are major) but this is a game I'm still fond for. I love Forza and will always have a place for it in my life.

I finished Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure. It was fun and managed to keep things interesting throughout with the central mechanic. Writing/story was maybe a bit heavy-handed and on the nose, but it still had its charms and was a nice time. Lovely art too.

Just got the True Ending in Sea of Stars without dying once.

Finished The Witcher 2. It was excellent. A graphical improvement, but it commanded less awe in the world than the first one despite being an altogether smoother, superior game. The story was good and so were the characters. I chose to side with Vernon Roche for my story.

Combat was difficult to begin with, but once mastered it made the game enjoyable. The side quests were numerous and largely enjoyable, often with consequences, but sometimes no more than an XP grind to boost your character. Naturally the visuals and vistas were good.

So I have finished Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and it was... fine. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the whole experience. On one hand, it was a silky smooth experience, I would be hard-pressed to find a game with less rough edges. Combat is smooth, there is plenty of variety in enemies and in ways to despatch them. Exploration is snappy, movement is fluid. The environments are amazing, and there are a bunch of side activities to do.

Yet I couldn't help but feel this emptiness throughout most of the experience. I checked back on my thoughts on the previous game and things finally clicked. I had the same feeling of discontent with that one, and called it the "Triple-A Semi-Open World Action-Adventure: The Game". Things are pretty much the same with the sequel. It's such a by-the-numbers AAA game that even though I had fun with it, even though it was an extremely smooth gameplay experience, I just couldn't be really engaged with it. Hell, the most genuine fun I had with this game was actually with the holotactics minigame.

None of this is helped by the weak story. Honestly, there are probably 5 hours of worthwhile narrative development in the whole 30-hour-long game, in the first one and the last four. Otherwise, you are chasing around this second-rate villain with poorly explained motivations, even whose second-in-command with half the screen time had a better-established character.

All in all, I can't call Star Wars Jedi: Survivor a bad game, far from it. It's an extremely polished game. It was just aggressively by the numbers, and for me, that made the experience feel really hollow.
It's not that I will remember this game for its shortcomings, it's that I won't remember it at all.

So I have finished Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023), and it was mediocre. (At least the campaign, I rarely bother with the multiplayer these days.) I heard a lot of bad things about the campaign of this one, claiming that they just used multiplayer maps instead of having proper missions. Unfortunately, that's true, fortunately, we still got some normal missions. Unfortunately, again, those normal missions are the most lukewarm and basic we got since the restart of the Modern Warfare series. No great spectacle, no insane action, no nothing. This is by far the most disappointing campaign of the subseries, perhaps in the whole series. The story is just the usual.

All in all, the whole experience is whatever. Good thing that the game is available in Game Pass right now, because I would not have paid more for this. If at all...

So I have finished Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, the standalone expansion to New Order. (No screenshot because I couldn't take one.) It was fine, a solid shooter all around, but I rather preferred the base game. This one was just kind of basic, sometimes even a bit dull of an experience. Thankfully, in the second half of the game, things get crazier.

I forgot to add a couple games to the thread, specifically Kirby's Dream Land and Severed Steel. To talk about them quickly, I will admit in my review I did on my profile I was certainly harsh on the game but it isn't terrible but there are SO many better games you can be playing. I'm realizing a lot of Indie Games at least from what I played are just copycats/clones of better games that I would rather be playing which I've become very disappointed by, but the Indie games I've loved were more refreshing and exciting and even if they did have elements from other games they made them feel new and unique. Man, I don't know. Maybe it's just me but the sweet spot for a lot of games nowadays seems to be in between Big Budget Blockbuster/AAA and Indie, so I guess the more middle ground of studios that are AA (I think that's the term?) like Flying Wild Hog, Ryu Ga Gotoku, Rebellion, Giant Squid, that kind of stuff. The stuff in between that those and other studios like them are currently doing the most interesting things that appeal to me right now. Anyways, it's a generic shooter that mashes Titanfall 2, F.E.A.R, Shadow Warrior 3, Turbo Overkill and a bunch of other games and doesn't do anything of it's own while having the most generic and dull neon mush of levels and lighting I've ever seen. (Okay, to be fair, Severed Steel came out before SW3 and Turbo Overkill, but I can't help but thinking how much better those games did with these ideas than this)

Kirby's Dream Land on the other hand was pretty nice! After not being that amazed with the Kirby offerings on NES and SNES too much, this Game Boy title is actually solid because it set the foundations of what a modern Kirby game is. Even without copy abilities it made battles and bosses more interesting and it's so different from the Spring Breeze game in Super Star that it's still worth playing on it's own. Graphically there was still lots to work out for characters, but they managed to introduce so many mainstays of the franchise so I'm pretty impressed altogether.

Kirby gets a 7/10, while Severed Steel gets a measly 5/10. Kirby is obviously one I can recommend and it's also short. I mean, Severed Steel is also short too but it's MUCH more boring and lifeless in comparison.

I forgot to add a couple games to the thread, specifically Kirby's Dream Land and Severed Steel. To talk about them quickly, I will admit in my review I did on my profile I was certainly harsh on the game but it isn't terrible but there are SO many better games you can be playing. I'm realizing a lot of Indie Games at least from what I played are just copycats/clones of better games that I would rather be playing which I've become very disappointed by, but the Indie games I've loved were more refreshing and exciting and even if they did have elements from other games they made them feel new and unique. Man, I don't know. Maybe it's just me but the sweet spot for a lot of games nowadays seems to be in between Big Budget Blockbuster/AAA and Indie, so I guess the more middle ground of studios that are AA (I think that's the term?) like Flying Wild Hog, Ryu Ga Gotoku, Rebellion, Giant Squid, that kind of stuff. The stuff in between that those and other studios like them are currently doing the most interesting things that appeal to me right now. Anyways, it's a generic shooter that mashes Titanfall 2, F.E.A.R, Shadow Warrior 3, Turbo Overkill and a bunch of other games and doesn't do anything of it's own while having the most generic and dull neon mush of levels and lighting I've ever seen. (Okay, to be fair, Severed Steel came out before SW3 and Turbo Overkill, but I can't help but thinking how much better those games did with these ideas than this)

Kirby's Dream Land on the other hand was pretty nice! After not being that amazed with the Kirby offerings on NES and SNES too much, this Game Boy title is actually solid because it set the foundations of what a modern Kirby game is. Even without copy abilities it made battles and bosses more interesting and it's so different from the Spring Breeze game in Super Star that it's still worth playing on it's own. Graphically there was still lots to work out for characters, but they managed to introduce so many mainstays of the franchise so I'm pretty impressed altogether.

Kirby gets a 7/10, while Severed Steel gets a measly 5/10. Kirby is obviously one I can recommend and it's also short. I mean, Severed Steel is also short too but it's MUCH more boring and lifeless in comparison.

I found Severed Steel to be a breath of fresh air in the FPS genre with how free-of-boundaries its movement system feels (unlocked Y axis FTW!) and how smoothly you can connect all of your actions while quite literally being amidst the hail of bullets and all the explosives being set off around you, which is further complemented by the destructible minimalist neon environments, extremely snappy gun accuracy and the perfectly fitting jungle dnb tunes: the entire package already sets itself apart from all the other shooters on the market, in pretty much every department. Games like Titanfall 2 and Shadow Warrior 3 are significantly less versatile in offering the player complete freedom over how to approach the adversary, but I do agree with Turbo Overkill being the more compelling game, even though it's not a level-headed comparison by any means. SS should also be treated as a fullfledged arcade title, it wasn't even going to have a story in the first place and that has never been the developers intention, the fun you'll have will be determined by how often you utilize the games mechanics.

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.)

3.5 years after starting Risk of Rain 2, 44.5 hours in, I have finally beaten a Solo Monsoon difficulty run playing as Bandit



Take that, Mithrix!