Not much this week, been looking a lot at the Switch 2 trailers.

I’ve played Heavenly Bodies with a friend. We liked it, although it wasn’t really designed for two people.

I’m back to Fire Emblem Engage, played chapter 16 which took me ages.

I feel like that kind of price increase would encourage illegal downloads too. Especially for countries with weaker currencies

I wonder if that’s why they’ve been more aggressive against emulators lately.

But yea, same for me: there’s very few games I’d spend that much money on, and I can’t imagine myself paying 80$ for something I don’t even know if I’ll like. I hope it doesn’t become the new standard.

The +$10 for physical games also worries me they might be trying to push more people to digital games only. But also there seems to be the new “game key” cards which might be an improvement over codes, if they are not tied to accounts.

Also yea, I am still not used to $70 for games and even that seems too much.

Quite disappointed with how they are now going for $90 (physical, $80 digital for MKW) games, the upgraded versions are paid DLCs and even the tech demo is a digital purchase.

The console looks good, and $450 seems fine for it, but everything else looks overpriced and that has kinda killed my interest.

I’ll probably wait a bit to play III, but I’ve heard it’s alright from people who hate I and II. Although I’ve also heard that IV is not good.

Azure and Zero are definitely the best ones, I really liked FC and SC, although they do have some problems (the first half of SC is pretty bad, and the same problem with ouroboros I mentioned before) and I think 3rd has an interesting story, but bad gameplay and pacing.

Randomly trying games on my phone, I downloaded Infinity Nikki and I’ve been hooked for the past few days.

I like the customization, especially when compared to the more limited one in FFXIV, although I wish it had dyeing (and more jackets). Compared to other gacha games, I like how “the grind” is more focused on crafting clothing instead of just leveling up, although resources (and by that I mean the timed energy) feel a bit too scarce.

I finally finished Trails of Cold Steel II, or more accurately I watched the final story cutscenes because I gave up towards the end of the final dungeon (Which I’m glad I did because it otherwise would have been a waste of time).

The duology was really bad, I don’t think there’s anything positive I can say about it, other than that it’s finally over (hopefully III is actually better as I’ve heard). I’ve already complained about the characters in previous, so I’ll now complain about the rest.

Overall I think the two games were bad in the worst way possible: they were a boring waste of time.

Trying to finish Trails of Cold Steel II.

My opinion hasn’t really changed on it from last time, it still drags and most of the game feels like padding, the characters are uninteresting and the combat is a downgrade from the older games. The tone of the writing also really doesn’t fit the setting and that bothers me a lot.

As with CS1, the bond system feels unnecessary and it’s not really used for character growth (which would have probably been fine if they were interesting in the main story). I’m still playing only because I really liked the previous games, otherwise I’d have dropped them early into CS1.

Borrowed Nine Sols and tried it for a few hours. It seems quite good, I really enjoy the art and parrying feels really satisfying.

Played a bit more Library of Ruina, but couldn’t focus so I ended up looking for something else to play.

Tried Ninja Gaiden (Sigma, from the Master Collection), but while I do like the gameplay I just can’t stand the controls and the camera.

Next I tried Daemon X Machina, it’s fine but it feels rather lacking when compared to AC6.

I tried Final Fantasy X again, and I do find the general story and themes interesting but I can’t care about the characters and the gameplay is mind numbingly boring.

I ended up settling on Final Fantasy V (Pixel Remaster) because of the job system. I don’t really like how the pixel remasters look, but it’s fine.

Finished Chants of Sennaar. It was pretty good, altho it got a little bit repetitive towards the end. I did enjoy the

Played a bit of Shenzhen I/O. It’s fun, but I’m a bit annoyed at how logic gates are (not) used and overall it makes me want to work on actual hardware projects.

Started Library of Ruina, hopefully it’s less painful than Lobotomy Corporation, which I had to drop as I couldn’t figure it out even tho I liked it.

Also tried Persona 5 Strikers. The combat is fun, but everything in the game feels a bit off and I can’t explain why I’m not really enjoying it.

This week I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which I started a while ago. Compared to the first one which I did not like at all, both story and gameplay are a huge improvement. I actually am interested in the characters now and the combat is pretty fun, altho I still haven’t had a chance to experiment much with it.

I have however a few minor complaints: the blade gacha is a terrible concept and I can’t understand why it was put in the game; on handheld, performance is generally good but the graphics are ruined by a really strong sharpening filter; Pyra’s outfit is dumb and doesn’t fit the character.

I’m also playing Chants of Sennarr and it’s really good! I especially liked the design of the first three languages. The artstye is also really nice.

I’m back to Trails of Cold Steel 2. It is better than the first one. It still feels a bit like padding but it doesn’t feel as pointless. The game structure doesn’t feel as formulaic and repetitive, there’s less quests and it moves much quicker. The characters also finally look different from eachother, as they are no longer in uniform.

The issues tho are still mostly the same: the combat is a downgrade from the Crossbell game (the orbment system in Cold Steel is basically materia from FF7, instead of the much more interesting previous implementation) and I don’t care about any of these characters as they barely have a personality (I blame this on the social link-style mechanics and bloated cast).

Bad week this time:

I got a bit tired of Trails of Cold Steel 2, so to take a break I tried playing Wolfenstein 2, but it gave me motion sickness (not sure why, as the game is running fine and I tried increasing the fov, which usually works for me). I started looking for other games to play, but I can’t find anything that clicks.

I tried CrossCode again, restarting it after stopping around a year ago at the first real dungeon (the mines).

I really like the art, the characters are charming and the premise is interesting enough.

The puzzles are alright, altho they’ve already started getting repetitive (I’m after the halfway point of the second dungeon). The combat too seems alright, but the enemies are really annoying to fight, as they all force you to wait to hit them, which I find really boring.

Overall I don’t like it and will very likely drop it now. After like 10 hours the actual story hasn’t advanced much and the MMO’s story is not at all interesting. I tried doing a few sidequests as I had heard they were good and I felt I was underleveled, but I ended up being disappointed by what I found. Same for the exploration, mostly because it was unrewarding and the graphics lack depth, making telling apart different heights for puzzles and platforming really hard. I could probably keep ranting, but I’ll end it here.

I just finished FFIX, which I liked a lot. I quite liked that it had themes that are usually more common in scifi than fantasy. I am however a bit disappointed with how some characters feel like the get forgotten after encountering them.

I’ve also started Trails of Cold Steel 2. I have low expectations, after the disappointment that was CS1, but the start seems OK, although I’m always bothered by how the relationship between Rean and his sister is written.

My target is 60, but depending on the game I find framerates down to 20 technically playable (if it’s stable), but I need a bit of time to get used to it.

For framerates above 60, however, I can’t really feel any difference so I usually set a cap at 60 to reduce heat and because the on board sound card is poorly isolated and picks up noise from the gpu.

I played a bit of Granblue Fantasy Relink, I’m at the last chapter of the story. I still haven’t finished it, the story itself wasn’t particularly memorable, but the environments were gorgeous and the gameplay is fun. For the gameplay tho, I’m a bit worried about the endgame/postgame, as there wasn’t much variety in fights.

I’m still playing Fire Emblem Engage. The gameplay is overall really good, but I’m a bit confused that new units are much better than most of the previous ones. From the initial party I think I’ve kept using only Chloé and Jean, while the others had better replacements every few chapters. It’s not exactly a complaint but it feels a bit weird.

I would have tried continuing FFVII Rebirth, but I remembered I bought FFIX last sales and played that nonstop during the weekend.

I too am in the mood for Wolfenstein, I’m thinking of playing the second one.

That’s why I almost always hide helmets.

Mine (Nord 2) does have it, but it’s broken and never triggers.

What’s your build like? I have an i5 6600k and a GTX 1660. I have two displays one connected to the 1660 and the other to the iGPU, so I might have been accidentally using the latter. Wayland seems to not work even on my other PC with a single GPU (3060 ti) tho.

Same experience on Manjaro. Usually really low framerates, constant crashes and Wayland’s broken.

Same. No bugs, but it just didn’t live up to the hype for me. I dropped it just after starting chapter 2.

Signalis is very good. It’s an re1-style survival horror but with a more scifi setting.