[Game Journal] Setsuna's 2024 Gaming Journal

Setsuna · Jan 1, 2024

About a week ago I mentioned in some other thread that I wanted to try my hand at a gaming journal to both be able to share what I've been playing and my thoughts on them, as well as just try to be more active in the community and have a long-form thread to keep going back to and update! It's my first time doing something like this but I figured structuring it my own way and just using it as a bench to organize my gaming for this year would be the best approach! If there are any rules or anything I'm just unaware, haha.

There are a few games I own right now that I'd like to get through this year, and I'm sure the list will change throughout our run. I have a few games planned for certain parts of the year but for right now I'm just very excited to get through the new games I now own and spend some time on them. The past few years I've wanted to do things like revisit childhood games or play games in some series that I missed out on, but since I've closed some of those gaps I think I'll just make a general list of games I want to play, I don't really have many specific goals.

Here's some stuff I wanna finish throughout the year!

Spoiler:

I'm curious to see how many of these I'll get through and how my experiences will be! The first thing I want to play is Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, and this thread will be updated whenever I finish something or decide on a new project. See you soon!

I've decided I'll probably try and go through a specific structure when talking about the games I play here just to try and keep things consistent and help organize my thoughts. I'd like to talk about how I discovered a game and why I wanted to play it, the genre of the game or what the gameplay is like, some things I liked about the game whether it's graphics or music or any specific moments, what my overall enjoyment of the game was, and then finish it off with an overall glance. It's what worked for my first post and I think it'll look good going forward! I'll also include any edits whenever I feel they're necessary.

It's also worth stating I want to talk about these games at length but I don't intend to review them or try and give objective criticism or anything. I just like talking and sharing my thoughts!

Setsuna · Jan 1, 2024

Today I played Gal Guardians: Demon Purge!

It's the first thing I bought during the holidays and I'd been eyeing it for a little while. I've never played or really heard of Gal Gun as a series before this game, but it caught my eye because I'm a big fan of the "metroidvania" era of Castlevania games (Symphony of the Night and all the GBA and DS ones) and thought this would be something very similar to that. Shinobu in particular really reminds me of someone like Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia or Miriam from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night in terms of her outfit.

I expected this game to be another enjoyable indie metroidvania, but it felt way closer to playing a classic Castlevania game like Rondo of Blood or Super Castlevania IV. Instead of backtracking through a big map as you beat bosses to collect upgrades to access new areas, it's divided into more linear separated stages with multiple paths that all converge on a boss at the end. It was a surprise, but still made for an enjoyable game. I played on Casual difficulty since I didn't like the idea of having a limited amount of lives and having to deal with knockback when I got hit in a 2d action platformer, but the game was definitely made to be more straightforward and difficult rather than have a confusing layout you have to navigate. It reminded me a bit of Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deepblue which I played in November, due to how they both seem to be about getting through difficult boss fights and memorizing their attack patterns. Funny they're both made by Inti Creates, because I easily compare both of them to something like the Mega Man games. The more challenging boss fights are fun though, and I found the different phases of the final boss to be fun to fight. I kept dying but was learning how their attack patterns worked to the point where I could reach the last phase with most of my health remaining, and it reminded me of the final bosses of the normal ending to Cave Story.

You explore the castle with two different characters, Shinobu and Maya, who each have different weapons and different ways of fighting. Shinobu uses an SMG and several projectiles like bombs, and Maya uses origami as weapons like swords, favouring close range. You can switch between them whenever you want and they each have their own advantages. Shinobu can fight from a distance and is much safer but does less damage, while Maya needs to be up close and has less HP making her riskier. It reminded me a lot of playing as X and Zero in the PS1 Mega Man X games, just if you could switch between them whenever you want (like Castlevania Portrait of Ruin) instead of picking one character for a specific level. The fact they have different abilities means you'll be switching between them to avoid certain attacks and that made it really fun to play. I tried to rely on Shinobu a lot more as I started since she has more HP, but learned quickly that certain enemies are a lot easier to kill with Maya. Once I started unlocking cooler subweapons like the Umbrella, Grappling Hook, Scythe, and Oonusa, I was switching back and forth often.

I'm not going to try to review what I play or whatever, but the way this game looks really appeals to me. Castlevania has always had really great pixel art and this just feels like another one of those games. The spritework of the characters is really pretty and the coloured after-images when they walk around reminds me of Dawn of Sorrow. A lot of the areas like the Library or the Castle's Peak or the Clock Tower feel like they belong perfectly in my Castlevania games. There's a scene at the end where the castle vanishes after the final boss and I swear it looks just like the ending of Aria of Sorrow. I'm really happy this is a kind of aesthetic people play these games for, because I've always loved it. I'm really not into horror games or games with realistic gore in them but something about games like these makes me love it. I have a spot in my heart for cute or badass characters hunting demons and ghouls in an old castle like this. It feels like a very specific niche but the idea that people are still out there appreciating it the way I do makes me really happy. The moment when you finish fighting a boss and their last-ditch effort is to drop an array of chandeliers onto you before one comes down on itself crushing it, or the entire clockwork angel fight where you finish by climbing up the tower to knock the head of the angel down into a sea of spinning gears to crush it... It's like the fight in the lighthouse in Order of Ecclesia where you drop the elevator you've been climbing down the shaft onto the boss you've been fighting to crush it to pieces... I know I'm gushing but... it's so good.

I think this is a game that satisfied me going through it once and getting the normal ending. I know that means I'm skipping out on the secret ending for obtaining everything, but I don't really think it's something I need to go back and finished what I didn't do, like rescuing all the lost characters or viewing the different endings. I got interested in what the rest of Gal Gun was like as I was playing this, but that interest peaked around the mid-point and dropped from there. At the point where I'm having to replay the levels to find... specific items to help this NPC locate the final boss, then have to fight him as a demon with a thing for sucking toes, it ended up being too much for me and I checked out of the story. I think once those kinds of things started to be brought up in the story it became too much for me, and it's a shame because I was enjoying pretty much all of what I was playing up to that point. I'm not thrilled about the idea of having to replay all the levels in the game to reach the final boss, but there are new paths you can take the second time around and I believe some of the bosses were harder, so it wasn't just a boring copy-paste of the same thing.

Overall, I enjoyed what I played! I think this is a game I'd recommend to someone who enjoys those classic Castlevania games, someone who's into something like Mega Man, or maybe even someone else who enjoyed something like Blaze in the Deepblue. Just... as long as they're fine with how lewd it can get.

As for what's next, I don't have any particular plans but it'll be something else I ended up picking up during the holidays. I think everything I managed to get is something I'm excited to play right away.

Setsuna · Jan 9, 2024

Today I played PowerWash Simulator!

It's something that immediately grabbed my attention when I first saw it. When I played House Flipper a few years ago my favourite parts were always the solo missions where you'd go and clean and restore people's dirty houses, washing their windows or removing garbage or bugs from their homes. I was left kinda underwhelmed by how few of those there were and this game seemed like exactly what I wanted. I wasn't disappointed.

It's a great timekiller, going through the different missions of career mode and the variety of what there is to wash was fun to see. There's a few vehicles (like bicycles, cars, vans, that sort of thing), people's houses or buildings, a ferris wheel, an entire skate park, a giant mining drill, a helicopter, a private jet with a laser beam, ancient statues and temples, and my favourite was washing an entire subway system. As you complete bigger and bigger missions you'll be able to buy different washers or equipment or different kinds of soap to help clean different materials faster but I'm glad it never made things too easy. I spent about 40 hours actively playing this game over 8 days and if I ever felt like something was going too slow or there was too much, it was a good sign to quit for the day and move on. Again, it's a great timekiller and I valued it a lot as something to do while I listened to YouTube videos in the background or had something slower going on. The only day I was really going at it playing this was today because I knew I was so close to the end.

I loved how silly this game ended up getting and how much personality it had. I wasn't expecting to enjoy the dialogue as much as I did, and every time I was washing something and got a new text message from a character I'd actively read it and pay attention, following whatever plot was going on or just enjoying how silly it was. You never see a single character's face, not even your own, but there were characters I genuinely enjoyed. There's this old guy who texts you in all caps and speaks in this perfect "old people facebook" type of way, there are these two characters with different attractions at a fair trying to convince people they have the better ride, or an overarching plot about the mayor's missing cat and how characters respond to or build off that. There's one mission where you're cleaning a house for a very specific client who mentioned stuff like how they would totally not rob a bank or how they would definitely not hide their identity and pretend to be someone else, all while you're currently cleaning off graffiti of a bank robber on their home. My favourite was a moment where one of the characters states they lost their phone and is listed under a new number, and a little while later you get a text from their old phone pretending to be them, where they trick you with a surprise job. It's something I honestly won't spoil because it definitely surprised me and got me even more interested in what was going on overall. I cared a lot more than I expected to.

This is a kind of game I value a lot. It doesn't have to be the most intense revolutionary thing I've ever played, but it's really nice as just something to do and spend time on. I knew I'd enjoy it a lot just based on that, but with things like the story of the career mode and how funny the characters were I enjoyed it in more ways that I didn't expect to. They didn't have to make the game this funny or have characters like this but I enjoyed it a lot more than if they never did, y'know? It's a satisfying time-killer and that's exactly what I wanted from it. I'll probably play all the extra missions whenever I'm interested enough because good timekillers like these are something I'll always have room for. I call them that with the most love I possibly could have.

So what's next? I have this sneaking urge to pick up a turn-based JRPG and I have a few options for it. Final Fantasy I is looking more and more interesting as time goes on, Bravely Default II is something I've been wanting to play ever since it was announced, and I'm thinking it could be fun to replay a Pokemon game with a really unorthodox team after how fun Indigo Disk was. Although, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is something I really want to start playing...
See you soon!

Setsuna · Jan 10, 2024

Today I played Final Fantasy: 20th Anniversary Edition!

Yes, another update so soon. I'll likely still get around to playing the other games I mentioned I wanted to, but I figured I wanted an older RPG, I'd rather play something new instead of replaying a Pokemon game, and it's an excuse to play something else in the PSP's library. It's a console that's interested me because I missed out on it and never really owned one or got to experience much. I basically just know the Mega Man 1 and X1 remakes are on it, and it's got some Final Fantasy. However, when I was watching some video a while ago on FF1, I realized I'd actually seen the PSP remake before, and the way it looks immediately appealed to me once I saw it again. Something about seeing the sprite for Kraken felt familiar in a way. So I made my choice on what to pick up next.

I've never played an RPG this old before. Sure I've played Gen I and some SNES RPGs like FF5 and the original Super Mario RPG, but I always got the feeling something like the NES FF games would be too uncomfortable for me to play. After experiencing it for myself, I've picked up the opinion that as long as you understand what you're getting into (things like having to speak to random NPCs to try and get hints about where to go next, looking up maps or guides online, and any potential grinding you may have to do) that it's surprisingly smooth. It felt more comfortable than I expected.

I still really enjoy simple, turn-based RPGs. I'm perfectly fine with the idea of having set characters with their specific roles in the party and selecting their attacks and doing things like casting spells or healing or whatever. I don't think the combat needs to be revolutionary to hold my attention, and I typically just have a lot of fun with making my party however I want and giving different skills to my different characters. I really appreciated the idea of being able to mix and match who you wanted in your party and what their names were and have to stick with that through the whole playthrough. While I struggled with naming them, I had a nice party I felt comfortable with. Lee, my Knight, had good defense and did good physical damage. I gave him Excalibur when I got it and he was always the best member of the party. Tomo, my Red Wizard, was my support character, I'd give them the white or black magic that was more used for utility, giving offensive buffs, or causing status effects. When I got Masamune I decided I'd give it to them so they could be a strong physical damage dealer as well, they were handy. Ruby, my White Wizard, just did what you'd expect. Healed the party, casted a lot of Holy and Dia, and gave the party physical or magical resistance, and she was very useful. Stella, my Black Wizard, was extremely simple. Firaga, Thundaga, Blizzaga, Flare. That's all she needed to be. I figured doing something simple was best, because I just wanted something simple and fun.

Old RPGs are usually associated with bad design choices that require lots of grinding but I never felt that issue with this game. I'm thankful I played the PSP version, I'm not sure how much worse it'd be if I played the NES original. The only moment I found myself grinding was at the very beginning before the first boss fight, because I wanted more gil for equipment and ended up being a comfortable level. The dungeons are designed to be confusing and get you into random encounters, meaning I was always at a good level and I never struggled at any point, but the big fights weren't complete pushovers. I had a couple party members die during the final boss fight especially, and having to manage raising them while making sure none of the others died with only one dedicated healer was nice.
The story is very simple, there's really not much to it, and there's a time travel plot point that kinda just felt like it was slapped on at the end, but it was easy to understand and didn't feel like it ruined anything the game was trying to tell. Again, simple and fun.

Final Fantasy I felt like a perfect example of a game that's just "good". I liked it and thought it was fun, but I don't think it was anything particularly special. I think it was exactly what I wanted, something simple and classic, and I don't regret picking that. I'm happy with what I got.

Next up is most likely gonna be Bomb Rush Cyberfunk cause I've gotten a bit of that RPG urge out of my system now, but there's something smaller and quicker I'm also thinking of playing next. Whether that'll be before or after, who knows.
See you soon!

Setsuna · Jan 12, 2024

Today I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk!

Technically it was yesterday, but out of interest of not posting to this thread every single day (because especially with longer writeups it can take a bit of time energy) I'll take some time now to talk about it. Jet Set Radio is a series I've had a lot of interest in since I was little. It's so unique and feels so cool, it's one of the first things I think of when I think of a game that's stylish. I didn't get a chance to play the games (both the original and Future) until last year, but I loved Future especially. Because of all this, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a game I had my eye on ever since it got announced. Hideki Naganuma, the main composer for Jet Set Radio, made music for Lethal League, made by Team Reptile, and both of them were involved in a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio. Just from that alone, I knew I had to play this, and it's something I followed pretty constantly up until its release.

"A spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio" is an incredibly accurate way to describe this game, because it feels like the Jet Set Radio 3 we never got. It understood what made Jet Set Radio so good, especially with Future, and brings new refinements. The city you'll be taking over is split into 5 main areas, where you'll have to skate (whether it's a bike, in-line skates, or a skateboard) around, cover another gang's graffiti with your own, compete with that gang through things like races or score challenges, and finish it off with a war for territory where you'll rack up combos to get a higher score in 2 minutes. It's formulaic but I never got tired of it, because simply skating around is so much damn fun and writing graffiti feels so satisfying. There's a big emphasis put on both of them and it was fun the whole time. Trying to get a high score is something almost no game has ever interested me in, but the variety in tricks and the way you can rack up massive combo multipliers through things like turning corners correctly and riding walls is really cool. If you don't have a rail to grind you can grind manually for a few seconds to keep your combo going, and spend your boost gauge to do special tricks for more points and to keep your combo going longer. There was a section where I just spent a long while ignoring the main quest and trying to rack up a huge combo because I wanted to see how high I could go, knew the game would record my score, and knew it would be good practice to navigate the area for things like any races or score challenges I'd have to do.

The plot was nothing too crazy but I was still interested in it and actually shocked at a few points. I was really interested in learning more about Red, the main character, after being beheaded and given a robot head was the first real plot moment. You don't learn anything about who he was until he lost his memories and learning who he used to be and what becomes of both his body and his head was really neat. The dream sequences after each area strangely don't feel out of place at all when you consider that Jet Set Radio had sequences like that as well, and I enjoyed how they focused a lot more on platforming, similar to something like Mario Sunshine's secret areas. Platforming and movement in general is helped a lot by having a boost you can do anytime in mid-air to catch yourself, like how you'd use a double-jump.

I do unfortunately feel the game was rushed, or at least lacking the necessary polish. A lot of transitions in and out of cutscenes would look awkward, I didn't quite learn how to properly fight off police officers until maybe 80% of the way through the game, and the boss fight after Pyramid Island requires you to reflect projectiles at them, which is a mechanic that only ever exists in that one fight that you can't do anywhere else and are never told about it, meaning I had to look up how to even fight the boss after a long stretch of confusion. I also think the soundtrack was great (Condensed Milk is my favourite, but Get Enuf, Da People, and I Wanna Kno are all fantastic) but I wish the OST had more tracks in it as I was listening to repeats very often as I was playing.

This game fulfilled everything I wanted it to be. They really understood what made Jet Set Radio great and then continued to make it even better. Games like this or Sea of Stars or Bloodstained make me incredibly happy we can get these kinds of games as spiritual successors or love letters to genres or certain niches of gaming that have fallen out of the mainstream because there's still a lot of love for them. That's my favourite part. I don't regret any drop of excitement I've had for this one.

The big one I kept teasing is over and done with, so where to next? Well, there's a smaller writeup I'll add right away, and will explain any potential picks at the end of that.

Setsuna · Jan 12, 2024

Today I also played Pepsiman!

This is the smaller game I was saying I'd either play before or after Cyberfunk. I'd heard about this one years and years ago in old youtube videos (ProtonJon and Jimmy Whetzel specifically) and knew about it before the whole "Mike Butters saw Korone streaming it" thing a few years ago. It's definitely a joke game and the appeal of it is watching the cutscenes and laughing at them for a few minutes rather than committing the time to playing the game in full, but that made me more curious. It's not that long either, I beat it in under two hours.

It's an endless runner type game, I'd compare it to something like Subway Surfers or Temple Run, Pepsiman moves on his own and you just move left and right, speed up or slow down, or jump and slide to avoid obstacles and get to the end of the stage before time runs out. I wouldn't say it's unique or anything but it's got enough variety in its short runtime to where I was actually impressed with what it felt like to play. It was a lot harder than I expected, especially the last stage, and it came down to a lot of pattern memorization and perfecting my movement, which is something I enjoy about some of my favourite games. Playing Pepsiman is just like trying to get a full combo in a rhythm game. A really weird, really silly rhythm game with only a few remixes of the same song, where your character is a hilarious failure of a fake superhero.

Every stage has a different setting for its plot, which include things like "There's a fire and we put it out but now everyone is stuck on the roof and they need Pepsi because they're tired" or "The supercomputer powering Pepsi City is out of control so you need to pour Pepsi on it so people won't riot anymore." All of this information is given to you through fully voiced english dialogue with Japanese subtitles in a game only ever released in Japan. The best part about this game is easily how silly and ridiculous it gets and I do think it's worth it to fully experience what it's like first-hand, but it's also perfectly enjoyable to just go watch someone else play it or watch the cutscenes online. "Pepsi for TV Game" is my favourite.

It's weird how much I enjoyed this game and I think if it was longer it wouldn't be worth playing and if it was less absurd it wouldn't be worth remembering. It is laughed off and dismissed as a joke but I liked playing it!

Now what's next? Bravely Default II is what I'm looking at right now, I'll keep the idea of replaying a Pokemon game tucked away for whatever, and if I don't want to play an RPG I'll likely want to start either Transiruby or Kero Blaster, though I imagine Kero Blaster is very short so that might be kept as something in between two longer games.
See you soon!

Setsuna · Jan 19, 2024

Today I played Bravely Default II!

This is the big one I've been meaning to play! Over the past couple years I finally got around to playing Bravely Default and its sequel Bravely Second, and loved both. By now, I've been totally convinced this is a series I've fallen in love with and will continue to follow. So when BD2 came out and I heard it was a completely unrelated story to the two games before it, I was really curious. I knew nothing about the new cast of characters or what kind of jobs would be available and I made it my mission to not spoil anything for the game and only ever look up something if it was absolutely necessary until I finished the game. So, did I like BD2?

It plays pretty much exactly how you'd expect if you've played the other Bravely games, or if you've played something like an older Final Fantasy. It's such a solid system, typical turn-based JRPG combat with a job system that gives you more options the more you progress in the game or defeat different bosses. In terms of gameplay I think all these games really need to do is introduce new jobs or skills or attacks to become their own. With how much flexibility there is when you can mix and match different jobs, every loadout I've made has felt vastly different from the others in any of these games. It's a great example of "don't fix what isn't broken" for the most part, because changes weren't really needed. The idea of having 20+ different jobs with their own roles or special abilities along with the Brave and Default commands during battle letting you take multiple turns at once is all this series has ever needed. There's a great new addition where the speed stat of your job affects how often your next turn will happen (it reminded me of Pokemon Legends Arceus) and I found myself valuing faster jobs because of that.

The options for jobs are great too. I used a lot of the classic white/black/red mages, but I was really happy Berserker came around when I was desperately needing a physical damage dealer. Vanguard is a cool offensive tank, dealing damage while lowering an enemy's attack. Pictomancer can debuff your enemies or remove status effects. Spiritmaster was a great healer offering regeneration healing over time and casting Reraise to automatically revive my party, and Hellblade offers great damage over time for every element. I decided to level up jobs like Beastmaster or Salve-maker despite not finding them interesting in other games because they had cool passive abilities I wanted to try and that made me want to try seriously using them. I ultimately decided they didn't interest me or work with my playstyle enough, but that time spent leveling them was never wasted, and I was pushed to explore outside my comfort zone.

Spoiler: My Party Loadout

For my party, I ended up having Seth as my physical attacker as a Bravebearer/Berserker. Using Bloody-Minded, Surpassing Power, and Last Resort, it wasn't uncommon for him to deal upwards of 30,000 damage with a single attack. Dual Wield prevented any stat drops from wielding two axes, and allowed him to both keep BP up with True Grit and deal massive amounts of damage through Savagery.

Gloria was my tank and was a fantastic user of both her jobs. I realized how phenomenal Bastion/Shieldmaster could be as a tank due to abilities like Wall providing a big boost to physical and magical defense, Defender of the People allowing you to take attacks meant for your teammates, and The Gift of Wisdom combined with Convert MP could grant her extra MP when she takes damage, and allow her to gift that MP to her teammates. Maximise HP meant she had double the maximum amount of HP during any battle, and Counter let her do decent damage without ever having to slow down.

Elvis was my healer. White Mage is always too good of a simple healer to pass up, but Spiritmaster was something I slept on for too long. He could give Gloria great healing whether it was a massive Curaga or keeping her health topped off with Regeneration. Gloria took a huge amount of attacks every turn and Elvis could always heal her up. Lunar/Solar-Powered and MP Regen could grant him MP regeneration after every turn, with Revenge and Thrust and Parry allowing him to take less damage and potentially gain MP if he ever did take a hit.

Adelle started out as my mage, with Red/Black meaning she could cast eight spells per turn of whatever element she wanted, but as I realized magic damage wasn't helpful late in the game, she became a Phantom/Hellblade, or Phantom/Ranger. Diabolism allowed her to keep the elemental flexibility she had, only for physical attacks, and skills like Achilles' Heel and Critical Amp meant she could turn her opponent's weaknesses into critical hits. Results Guaranteed allowed her to make sure she could paralyze an enemy when I had her as a Ranger, which was an absolute necessity for some of the superboss fights. Damage dealers who rely on crits have always been cool to me, and Adelle fit a role I didn't expect I'd need.

Just like in the previous Bravely games, I did end up maxing out every single job. However, the one change I don't like in this game is how the process of grinding is different. In Bravely Second, if you beat a group of enemies in one turn you could choose to continue fighting groups of enemies until you either died or failed to defeat them all in one turn. This would offer you multipliers on things like JP after the battle based on how many groups you could handle, which was a fun risk-reward system and made grinding super easy. In this game, you can no longer choose to continue fighting more groups. If you run into multiple enemies close to each other on the world map, you're forced to fight those back to back, whether you want to or not. There are special items that allow you to automatically enter consecutive fights with certain enemies, which is useful for the grind, but you just kinda have to hope that you can run into a bunch. Tying this grind to items you can't buy until Chapter 6 (when you're practically at the end of the game) and removing the player choice from the system made it such a hassle, and it made for a punishing early game and a big slog late-game to finish leveling every job like I wanted to for the superbosses. It felt like a step back, and one that ultimately makes the game feel like it's paced much rougher than it was supposed to. A few grinding sessions were needed to finish this. That gave me an opportunity to listen to more LL music so I'm fine with that I suppose.

Despite that, this game does feel like it's supposed to be an entry point for new players. Its story is totally unrelated to the previous games, but still honours a lot of what made those stories interesting or unique and I found enjoyment in it as someone who had played those games. Bravely Default II's plot places a lot more emphasis on Asterisks, explaining what they actually are, where they came from, and how the power they grant can corrupt people. The fairykind especially intrigued me because fairies in the other games have always been really interesting. When I walked into a city that was killing its own people because everyone was suspecting each other of secretly being fairies in disguise, and trying to weed them out through this stuff on the level of the salem witch trials, it was equal parts horrifying and intriguing, but made complete sense to me as an existing BD fan.
That being said, I don't think this game's story was as interesting or engaging as the other games. This series (Bravely Second especially) does a great job at humanizing its villains and giving them good motivations. Some of my favourite villains in this game were good examples of that, but there were some generic, boring bad guys. It felt like a failed attempt to just recreate the Kaiser's army from Bravely Second. Characters like Dag, Selene, Vigintio, and Marla were uninteresting to me. Adam just felt like another attempt to make the Kaiser again, and I never liked him. Seth, as the game's main protagonist, feels incredibly boring. Letting the player name him means no other character can really say his name or put attention towards him (like a Persona protagonist?) and he ends up getting no development. There are a couple plot hooks about his character at the very beginning of the game that get completely forgotten and never resolved, and I was waiting the entire game for a single scene he'd matter in until the very last chapter.

However, even if I don't think it was as good as the other games, I liked it overall! Chapters 2, 3, and 4 were all highlights for me (Chapter 3 especially!) and it's really hard for me to decide if my favourite character is Elvis or Adelle. Elvis has fantastic character moments with so many characters and brings a really charming optimism to the table. Adelle had a big character moment I adored, and was just generally charming through the whole game. As someone who loves Edea from the other games I could quickly see myself getting attached to her and that made both that character moment and one of the bad endings really impactful for me. They were both moments where even as a veteran Bravely fan that these games genuinely left me in shock.
Anihal may be one of my favourite characters, and Castor, Folie, Gladys, and Lonsdale were villains I really liked, all for different reasons. I thought the english voice performance for Castor was pretty cool, especially.

I think it took me a little bit to get into this game, but once I did it just became another great game in another great series I love. While I don't think it was as good as the other games, I'm really happy I got to play this and I spent around 60 hours getting through the main story, superbosses, and maxing out all my jobs at Level 15. There are going to be a few achievements I'm going to want to get, if not all of them, so I think that's great evidence of how much I enjoyed this game! I'd go to sleep thinking "I'm going to play more tomorrow!" and wake up feeling excited to play it, and that's incredibly valuable to me. I think it's a great starting point for the Bravely series, and a game that should be played if you're interested in it!

What comes next? Well, this is the big thing I was looking forward to the most, and I'll likely be continuing to play it for a while to collect those achievements I want and probably do some extra quests and everything. After that, Transiruby and Kero Blaster are still on the table, I've been doing some cleanup in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, potentially trying to get all those achievements, and there aren't many new games I bought during the holidays left for me to chew my way through. I'll pick something, but those two seem the most likely.
See you soon!

Setsuna · Feb 1, 2024

It's been a little bit, but after I tried and couldn't really get into Transiruby, I recently played Mega Man Battle Network 2!

I think I made a couple mentions of this in other threads, but I just hadn't had time to write an entire journal entry for this one. That's the thing, I really love talking at length about the stuff I get up to, but it can sometimes be a commitment.
First of all, it's fantastic that the Battle Network series has legacy collections. They're all available on modern consoles now and it makes me really happy these games are being acknowledged and made more available. These games are accessible if you wish to play them, and I think every video game should be given that.
I've been a lifelong fan of Mega Man, I played the classic series when I was a little girl, but never touched the others. A few years ago a friend of mine had been talking to me about the Zero and ZX games and how they were his childhood games, and I decided I'd take the opportunity to get into what I was missing. I played the X series, the Zero series, and the ZX duology, and then decided Battle Network was next. I knew about BN1 from childhood but had only beaten it for the first time, and said "I'll play the rest of Battle Network next year". Obviously that didn't happen and it's up to current me to pick up the slack from past me. I'm in some weird JRPG kick right now, but I wanted something that was super different from Final Fantasy or Bravely Default. Battle Network is more of a deck-builder action RPG where reflexes and quick movement is just as important as how much damage you can deal.

These games are fairly short (so far at least) and feel like the plot structure of a "monster of the week" kind of cartoon or anime. You'll start off the "episode", something will happen, you'll have to go around doing a few errands or fight some baddies and end that "episode" by fighting the bad guy causing the problem, day is saved, rinse and repeat until you take down all the bad guys and fight their leader. I can't say I remember the plot points of some of these episodes too well (besides the airplane mainly due to the unique setting), but I did find the main villain at least somewhat interesting simply for the fact they took over an entire city and made it almost inhabitable. They were really cool for what they were, considering the guy's never even given a name in-game, I had to look it up. Turns out it's Sean.
Each episode will take you to some new area where you'll fight enemies, use the attacks you obtain from the battles to make your deck stronger, usually it's a new dungeon you have to traverse with some interesting design where you solve a puzzle or two. In fact, the dungeons were some of my favourite parts. Something like the Mother Computer where you had to speak to NPCs to figure out a password by figuring out their riddles, or the bomb PETs where you had to find your way around a maze that forms as you work your way through it with one-way paths.
Battle Network 2 felt a lot harder than the first game, with attacks dealing a lot more damage (sometimes up to 100 or more, when your HP maxes out at 1000). I don't have great reflexes and at a couple points I did find myself getting frustrated and opted to grind for money to buy health upgrades just to take more hits. In fact, I don't really think BN2 holds up as well because it was just harder for me to get through it. I know it can be dismissed as "just get good" but there's a point where I felt it got too punishing for me, and resorting to having to grind to make a game more comfortable isn't something I'm against, it's can just be disappointing to me sometimes.

I think BN2 has good ideas. I like the variety in stage hazards like magnets, grass, or how some battles can start with missing or cracked panels. I like the different customizable forms MegaMan.EXE can obtain based on how you play. I thought more emphasis was placed on more characters than just Lan and MegaMan.EXE, I liked seeing more of Mayl and Dex and Chaud. I enjoyed myself, but I didn't have the smoothest time with it. As I'm writing this I'm somewhere in the middle of Battle Network 3, and that was something I wanted to play right away because I can tell they're moving in a good direction with this series, but I want something better.

And now we talk about what's next! A writeup on Battle Network 3 will happen, likely soon. Because of my participation in the Game-Along this year, I'm planning on finally playing Kero Blaster pretty soon. I'm hoping Monster Hunter Rise will likely get an entry in this journal at some point this year as well as I've been playing that with my bf and a friend of ours, but want to save my thoughts on it for once we finish the base game. I'm also the happy owner of a copy of Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster, so I'm expecting to sink my teeth into that once I'm done with BN3.
See you soon!

BWZ · Feb 1, 2024

Setsuna said:
Today I also played Pepsiman! [...]

PEPSIMAAAAN !!!

It was only released in Japan officially but it was REALLY popular in countries where pirating games was the only option to play. I grew up in one of those and every ps1 owner I knew had this game. Like EVERYONE. Along with Jackie Chan Stuntmaster. These two were the Mario+Duck Hunt combo of the ps1 lol

I don't think it's great or anything but it's challenging enough and doesn't overstay its welcome. The perfect length for a game of this type, plus I agree with you on the variety part. Glad you liked it !
If you want to play other weird japanese ps1 games, check out Chô Aniki ! It's definitely ... uhhm ... an experience ^^ . Just don't spoil yourself by watching let's plays haha

Setsuna · Feb 6, 2024

Today I played Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster!

In a way I suppose you could say Final Fantasy III is a childhood game I never got to play? When I was little my brother pushed his DS cartridge of Final Fantasy III to me to get me to play it, and it was simply just too busted up and I couldn't play it. I forgot about it and was never really interested in Final Fantasy as a whole until I got into Final Fantasy XIV with some friends. As I played through that, I became incredibly fond of the Shadowbringers expansion, learned the Crystal Tower came from Final Fantasy 3, and was interested in what that would be like. I heard FF3 had a job system just like Bravely Default and that made me even more interested, so I decided I'd try and get into Final Fantasy as a series by playing FF3. However, I heard FF5 was just a better version of FF3 and decided to play that instead, leaving FF3 to just be picked up at some point when I could fit it in. Turns out the Pixel Remasters just recently had a little sale, so I was able to pick this up with some spare funds. It ended up turning this experience into less of "this is a new game" and more of a "this is something I've been surrounded by but never experienced first-hand" akin to something like my time with Pepsiman, because I played this game to both learn what FF3 was really like, and what the Pixel Remasters were like.

I don't really think explaining classic Final Fantasy is necessary (especially with having played FF1 recently) but FF3 isn't a lot different from how FF1 felt to play. Four party members with several classes to choose from, you attack things or cast spells in turn-based combat, defeat bosses, level up, and finish the game. FF3 is the first game to introduce the job system, where throughout the game you'll unlock different jobs that you can switch your different characters to with different roles in the party. While there aren't really any unique roles given how classic of a game this is, it's a nice little bit of variety instead of just having to stick with the same party setup for the whole game like FF1. If something isn't working out or you need to switch to a specific set of equipment, you can do that in the blink of an eye.
In fact, you're... really going to have to switch to a specific set of equipment. There's a common criticism of this game that the jobs are less of customization and more like keys for locks throughout the game. If you don't have the correct jobs for some boss fights, you're going to have trouble. Salamander can deal a truck-load of fire damage to every member in your party so you're going to have to buy the fire-resistant armour from the dwarves nearby. The problem is that each job can only equip certain times of items, forcing you to use Warriors. This means you can't reliably use Monks who would deal more damage, or Black Mages who could take advantage of Salamander's ice weakness by casting Blizzard. This happens with several bosses. One changes his weakness every few turns so you have to use a Scholar's Scan ability to view their weakness, one drops a massive burst of damage on your whole party requiring you to use Dragoon's Jump ability to get out of the way (imagine it's like a boss fight where your only viable move is just to spam Fly from Pokemon) or a dungeon that requires you to use Dark Knights or else the enemies will infinitely multiply. The best part of a job system like this is enabling creativity with different party setups or mixing abilities within your party, but FF3 just wasn't quite there yet. I would agree with the idea FF5 is a better FF3 solely for the better job system, it's that much of an improvement.
This sounds really negative and it can be a little frustrating to figure out, but the entire combat system is built on an incredibly solid foundation from something like FF1! It was still fun to play, if not a little simple given how classic it is. It's a good step forward for the series, but you can tell there was some growing pains.

I'm glad the Pixel Remasters gave us the option to raise or lower the modifiers of how much EXP or gil you get per battle. There are some pretty tough sections that I felt required a lot of grinding and being able to simply bump up my EXP to x4 made the experience a lot more comfortable than it would be otherwise. Overall the difficulty curve wasn't that comfortable so being able to really cut down on any potential grind was very nice. The graphics are great, the remastered soundtrack is wonderful (Eternal Wind especially, I love that song 🤍 ), but the ability to boost the modifiers like this really makes me happy the Pixel Remaster is the version I played, and I liked it enough to say it's the version I'd probably recommend if you want to play this game too!

The plot isn't too interesting and I think everything speeds by without getting enough time to stick, but I think the best part of playing this was too really experience where a lot of the things in Final Fantasy XIV came from. Things like the Labyrinth of the Ancients, the Crystal Tower, the World of Darkness, a bunch of the bosses you fight in those raids like Glasya Labolas or the Red Dragon or Amon or Xande. The idea of there being these Warriors of Darkness to keep the balance between light and dark is really interesting to me, instead of just saying "light good, dark bad". I love XIV's Crystarium and always considered my character to be the Warrior of Darkness, so I can't help but admire it all. The Crystal Tower raids and Shadowbringers both do a lot with what FF3 set up and I love seeing where those themes both originally came from, and where they ended up. While the plot wasn't anything special, I appreciated the characters. I thought Princess Sara, Aria, Cid, and Desch were all nice, and the way you get to bond with them a little bit at the end of the game as you return them to their homes after it's all over was pretty cute!

FF3 is interesting to me because I don't think it's as good as the other classic FF games I've played so far. I'd easily say I liked FF1 and FF5 more than it. It's still a very solid classic RPG but I think a lot of the new things it introduced aren't as good compared to what we'd get later on, like the plot or the job system. The difficulty curve wasn't great but the EXP modifiers helped make it more comfortable and even with all that considered, I was still waking up excited to play this game, I chewed through 16 hours in maybe 2 or 3 days. I liked it, but I don't think it was as good as other things I've played. And that's really interesting to me.

So last time I said I'd play this after Battle Network 3 and while I'm still slowly working at that game, I think I've lost interest in it and am simply playing it just to mark it off as finished. I'll be finding the time to play Kero Blaster soon, but I've been considering playing Persona 4 Golden more and more lately. That's so long to the point where it definitely won't be the next thing in the journal though. There's something else I'm waiting on playing, but there's still fifteen days until that comes out! Kero Blaster is likely what's next.

Setsuna · Feb 6, 2024

Today I also played Kero Blaster!

I've been a big fan of Cave Story for most of my life, since I love this genre of 2d run and gun games and when an acquaintance mentioned this game to me, I immediately knew it was something I was going to enjoy. While playing this I could feel a lot of the DNA of Cave Story, especially in the story and the gameplay. I wanted to take this screenshot and use it to represent the game in this thread because it reminded me of the Outer Wall in Cave Story, as that's somewhat of a special scene for some fans of it. If you've been reading this journal I'm sure you've seen me say "Oh I'll play Kero Blaster eventually" when discussing what I had planned, and as soon as I got to playing it (Thank you Game-Along!) I immediately regretted putting it off for so long.

Kero Blaster is a pretty simple level-by-level 2d run and gun game, I'd compare it to something like playing through the Wily Castle levels of a Mega Man game. You play through each level in a linear order, fight a boss at the end, obtain a new weapon or upgrade from them, and progress until the end of the game. A while ago I'd mentioned in an Off Topic thread how I was unsure if I could really call Mega Man games difficult since I'd spent my whole life playing them and they aren't hard to me anymore because I'm so experienced at them. Playing Kero Blaster was like a breath of fresh air because I did find it fairly challenging. You have a very limited amount of health and can't make mistakes too often, but it's never incredibly punishing as running out of lives and getting a Game Over merely makes you start at the beginning of your current level with all your upgrades in tow. Through the variety of weapons and the ability to purchase upgrades for them in the middle of every stage, I never found anything insurmountable and I had a really comfy time while still having a healthy challenge. It was perfect for me.

I really enjoyed playing this and absolutely thought it was worth my time. I'd quickly and easily recommend it because of its short length, especially to anyone who's a fan of Cave Story. It reminded me of what it felt like to play that game for the first time, and felt like a really refreshing challenge in a genre I love. I feel like some games in this genre can't find a comfortable balance or make the gameplay way too punishing, but this felt just right. I enjoyed the music as well, especially the themes for the Hotel and the Train Station. The idea that the second weapon you pick up states it'll be effective in water is neat too, as I had this "Ohhhh" moment because of course you'd spend a lot of time in water in a game where you play as a frog. Maybe it's an obvious thing but it just never occurred to me.

Now that this has finally been marked off the list, what's next? Battle Network 3 will come eventually as I finish crawling through it, and even though I'm heavily considering just taking the plunge into P4G now, I know I'm going to get distracted from it some days from now, and I won't be able to play it on an upcoming vacation. Something about JRPGs just really appeals to me right now. I'm just gonna have to find out what else I really want to play currently. ;;

Setsuna · Feb 23, 2024

Today I played Yohane the Parhelion: Numazu in the Mirage!

Surprise, the next thing I'm talking about isn't Persona 4 Golden. I'll talk more about that at the end.
As a huge Love Live fan it's crazy to me that we live in a timeline where we have any game based off the Genjitsu no Yohane anime for modern consoles, much less two of them! Numazu in the Mirage released yesterday and I already knew that once it came out, I'd drop everything I was doing in order to go play it. I've made a couple passing mentions of a distraction that would come up in the near future, or a game I was eagerly looking forward to. This is that game. Once it was announced I knew I wanted to play it and when I got a chance to play the demo a little while ago I replayed it over and over because I was having a good time. It says a lot when I'd rather spend my time replaying a demo of an unreleased game rather than spend time on a full game I've purchased. That demo convinced me to buy the game on release day, and I sat in waiting ever since.

Numazu in the Mirage is a deck-builder roguelike RPG that my boyfriend very strongly compared to Slay the Spire. While I've never played that myself, from what I could find I think that's the best way to explain this game. You'll travel through the mirror world, fighting enemies by playing cards that deal damage or shield you from incoming attacks with various effects. After winning battles or by landing on different spaces on the map like the shop or treasure chests, you'll obtain new cards to add to your deck, new charms that apply passive buffs to your character (such as giving you a free shield on your third turn, or dealing 4 damage to an enemy for every 3 cards you play) or cards that allow you to summon other characters into battle to support you. As you continue playing you'll get better cards, more charms, utilize your summons better, and defeat bosses. It's really fun just how powerful you can get so quickly, and because you'll never get the same cards or charms in the same places, every run feels unique. I don't have a lot of experience with roguelikes, but it's the typical loop that gives them endless replayability despite the (potentially) short length of each run. As you play you'll complete certain requirements (such as "Summon Dia 8 times" or "win with 3 Kanan cards in your deck") you'll earn points to redeem for upgrades to make you more powerful in your next run, or my personal favourite, new costumes for Yohane to wear to start with different cards and charms, altering the playstyle.

The plot was along the lines of what I expected, but I thought it was good! GnY's version of Yohane continues to be a very compelling protagonist for the series and I thought the rest of Aqours was more involved than they were in Blaze in the Deepblue, especially due to the summon cards. Ruby's has to be my favourite with how good drawing extra cards always is in any card game. I finished the story quickly but I didn't have any issues with that since not only will I spend a good amount of time replaying to unlock different costumes or upgrades, but this game is more challenging than I expected! The final boss fight had me more nervous than any other I can remember, and it felt really rewarding to come up with a strategy that felt so powerful, playing card after card each turn. Nightwicked Mari in particular gave me a lot of trouble to beat, but felt immensely satisfying when I was able to destroy her in a later run. I also thought the music was nice, especially the song for the main menu inside the fortune telling shack. I'm unsure about how the PC version compares, but I'm thankful this game runs relatively smooth on the Switch. The load times are a lot longer than I'd hope, but they're the only real issue I ran into while playing. I think it's a little unpolished visually, but that never took away from my enjoyment.

I didn't feel my time was wasted, nor that my excitement wasn't a disappointment. This is something I'll continue to play for a while, especially when I'm out of the house and looking for something to do in transit. I'm unexperienced with roguelikes, but even if I don't stick around to play more, this will always be that special one for me. I'm so happy both this game and Blaze in the Deepblue exist, I hope they get more people interested in Love Live (or at least the Genjitsu no Yohane anime) and I hope with all my heart it continues strongly into the future. I will always love Aqours.

So what's next? Well, I've been talking a lot about Persona 4 Golden lately and I have already finished it. I'm actually on my third playthrough right now, trying to finally max out all my social links in pursuit of getting every achievement in the game. I wanted to experience everything it had to offer before writing a journal entry on it, but don't be surprised to see that come next. Depending on how long that takes, the next thing in this thread could either be P4G, whatever I may play for the Game-Along, or it could be something else that I really want to sit down and actually finish up, like Transiruby or Dream Team. P4G is likely what comes next though.

Setsuna · Feb 26, 2024

Today I played Persona 4 Golden!

I should start this journal entry by mentioning this game was gifted to me by @Zeostar, so thank you!

I've been a fan of Persona for the past 5 years when I got to play Persona 5 Royal for the first time, and I've had the interest in playing P3 and P4 ever since. With the release of Persona 3 Reload, seeing gameplay of it made me really want to get into a Persona game again. This was not only something I've wanted to play to fill an empty space (since I've played through both P3P and P5R before) but also because I know a lot of people who have played and loved Persona 4, even enough for some to call it their favourite game of all time, so I wanted to see what it was like for myself.
I finished this game several days ago but I'm writing this so late because I wanted to obtain every achievement in the game, which took me three separate playthroughs (due to bad planning, I totally could've done it in two) and I wanted to have a full perspective on everything this game has.

I really enjoy the gameplay of Persona. The life sim elements, making friends and ranking up social links, going to school and raising your social stats and living a normal student life, and the RPG parts where you fight monsters, level up and use your personas, and explore dungeons, and how the two of those connect between each other. I think my favourite part of the whole series is how the Personas you create directly connect with both of these sides of the game. Bonding with your friends and raising the rank of your social links with them allows you to power up the Personas you create and make them more powerful, and having the right kind of Persona when spending time with your social links helps rank them up faster. The time limit of having only one year to complete the story makes everything you spend your time on valuable, and allows for a well-paced story that never really gets too dry or overstays its welcome. I love the mechanic of using your existing Personas to create new ones because it means you're constantly trying out new kinds with new strategies in order to stay at a comfortable level, but you can still keep some of your favourite skills from the Personas you use to carry to your new ones. As a Pokemon player it's really easy for me to get into the combat and understanding different enemies are weak to different elements, but the added depth to the Persona systems and all of the life sim elements make it feel a lot more engaging than a Pokemon game would be.

I think the best part of this game is the characters and the overall atmosphere it gives off. Playing P4 felt like watching a slice of life anime, just like the kind I'd watch throughout high school to cheer me up after a really tough day. A lot of the interactions between the characters was fun and I found myself taking screenshots of a lot of them as I played. The idea that a lot of the conflict comes through a character-specific arc where the cast has to fight "evil" versions of themselves and grow from accepting the worst parts of themselves makes each character really endearing. I loved most of the cast and enjoyed both their character arcs of facing themselves, and the interactions they'd have with other party members after joining the party. I knew I'd love Rise before I even started playing, but Yosuke immediately appealed to me, Chie was more interesting than I expected, Kanji was very entertaining, and I liked Naoto more than I expected to. It reminds me of Nijigasaki, where the plot isn't really the main focus and it's more about the characters. This is the first Persona game I've played where I've wanted to max out every social link for every party member and see what their Personas would evolve into.
The Personas in this game were interesting to me as well. Seeing ones like Izanagi, Susano-o, Amaterasu, and Kaguya were really cool because they were ones I instantly recognized the names of and actually know their origins. I eventually ended up building Lv99 Izanagi and Kaguya because they were ones I really liked and wanted to stick with through the whole game.

I wasn't expecting to like the music of Persona 4 as much as I did. I had heard Reach Out to the Truth years ago and I've never really liked it, but hearing the music as I played the game was a real treat. I loved songs like Backside of the TV, I'll Face Myself, Time to Make History, Signs of Love, Heaven, and Shadow World.
I also noticed a lot of similarities in P5 as I played this game. The structure of the gameplay, the character-based arcs, the dungeons in this game would eventually become P5's palaces, similar villains, a very similar final boss, and the idea of the main cast being these kids fighting crimes behind the backs of the police.

This is the first time I've gone out of my way to obtain all the achievements for a game in this journal and I think it made the experience a lot more interesting. Some of them such as clearing the story, entering a relationship with a girl, or experiencing things like the TV shopping channel or making lunches at home just came naturally during a first playthrough. The later ones such as Hardcore Risette Fan, obtained for hearing 250 unique voice lines from Rise in battle, required the use of a checklist spreadsheet and careful planning. It's the kind of thing I really had to go out of my way for but easily broadened my view on what the game had to offer. In order to hear all of these I had to use all the different characters (which helped me realize how useful Teddie could be, I simply wrote him off in my first playthrough!) and create a plan on how to do things like KO my own party members, put status ailments on them on purpose, or how to knock down several enemies at a time without killing them. It made the experience a lot more interesting to me because it's not the kind of way I'd ever try playing the game if I didn't have to. It's also the first time I've taken down a superboss in a Persona game, though I don't think Margaret was too difficult.

I understand now why P4 is such a beloved game. I don't think I can say it's my favourite Persona game, I'd still say I prefer P5R, but while I was playing this game it's all I wanted to from the moment I got out of bed to the moment I tucked myself in. I had a fantastic time.

It's hard to think of what my next project will be. I began playing a Pokemon game and may finish that up at some point soon, and I'm not necessarily against picking up Dream Team again and playing that. The only other thing I can think of is something completely new, but I haven't yet started that and I'm not sure I'll have enough time to finish it. P4G was meant to take up a lot of time until I'd be travelling and playing something I have planned for that trip, but now I'm left for a few weeks with a need to fill the time... Who knows?

Setsuna · Mar 2, 2024

Today I played Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus!

Sly Cooper is a name I've known for years and years, since my brother played the games and I happened to enjoy the cutscenes and the general presentation of the series. While Sly 1 isn't the game I'm the most familiar with, this is a series I've been meaning to play for so long and kept putting off. It's only thanks to signing up for this year's Game-Along and being forced to pick a stealth game for this month's theme that I finally had the push I needed to do some thieving. Stealth games aren't really my thing, I've basically never played one and haven't often enjoyed forced stealth mechanics in games like Zelda, and honestly "a stealth game for people who don't play stealth games (or people who like Crash Bandicoot)" is how I'd describe Sly 1.

It's a 3D action platformer with a bunch of stealth elements or sections. Things like avoiding searchlights, sneaking up on enemies, special abilities that turn you invisible or distract enemies with a decoy. A lot of the fun for me was using Sly's acrobatic skill to progress through levels. Things like climbing along poles under patrolling guards or swinging across hooks in the ceiling above security lasers was a lot of fun.
I compare this game to Crash Bandicoot because I think it's really similar in a lot of its design. Most of the levels you go through are pretty straight-forward paths with some extra collectables to find for upgrades, there are some levels that have you in some sort of vehicle like a drag race level or a shoot 'em up style level, you can do most of the levels in a given chapter in any order and they all lead to a boss fight at the end. It's also easy to compare them when Sly loses a life in one hit but can obtain extra items throughout levels that gives him a spare hit. Though I've heard this is the only game in the series where this is the case.

Sly 1 is another game where I wasn't expecting to like the music as much as I did, but I can't say I'd listen to the soundtrack on my own time, just that it was a pleasant accompaniment. Besides the acrobatic movement my favourite part was easily the dialogue and animated cutscenes. Sly is such a cool character and before every chapter the opening cutscene will go into detail about who the villain is, what their backstory is, and what they're doing. One villain is a rich noble who got bored of the high life and became a criminal for fun, a couple of them were ridiculed as children and turned to crime to get their revenge, and they're all in different locations in the real world which adds some nice visual variety to different chapters. The final chapter is essentially one big back-to-back onslaught before the final boss that tests everything you know, and that was a lot of fun to go through. I wasn't expecting such a variety in gameplay (as I had heard only Sly was playable in the first game) but levels never got boring nor took too long. I was always enjoying myself.

Sly 1 was definitely worth my time. It was nice to kick this game off the list of childhood games I'll play eventually, and I enjoyed this enough to decide I want to play the whole series. There's one game in particular I really want to fully experience for myself, and I'm very interested in the rest of the ride as well. I'm really thankful for the push I got to finally play this game, and I think it was the best game I could've picked to play for this month's theme.

Whenever I play anything else this month, I'm not entirely sure what it'll be, so I can't really say I have any ideas for what's next. I lost interest in the Pokemon game I had been trying to play and instead picked up a Pokemon spinoff game, and things like MMBN3 or Dream Team are games I'll probably try to finish at some point this year, but had to admit to myself I'm just not interested in them right now. If you made me take a guess, it'd either be this spinoff game I don't want to spoil yet, or this thread will be dead for most of the month, in which I will post Xenoblade Chronicles 2 near the end of the month. See you then!

[Game Journal] Setsuna's 2024 Gaming Journal

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