[Game Journal] Backlog Zone: Act 1

To be added when I decide what I'm going to play

To be added as soon as I sort the dates out

Kena: Bridge of Spirits
I like watching Dreamworks movies. Not sure if I really like playing them though. This felt like it was setting up a sequel more than being its own self-contained title.

Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland DX
A long overdue replay of one of my favourite Atelier titles! It's aged pretty well, all things considered. The nice thing about the Atelier franchise is that the synthesis and combat are changed just enough with each iteration so that the older titles don't feel too dated...mostly. Rorona has aged pretty badly, but Totori is still the same heartwarming experience it was the first time I played it, back in...2011. Good god...

Wandersong
Ahahaha, this was delightful! I'm surprised they could make such a simple gameplay mechanic feel so fresh, and found so many ways to incorporate it into the gameplay. The story was a bit heavy-handed with its message, but overall I enjoyed this.

Pokemon HeartGold
So last year I started a solo challenge, to play through every gen with the early route Normal-type. This was my Furret run! Her name was Eclair and she was shiny. I was actually shocked. Despite this...yeah, this was not the most enjoyable of runs. Furret are painfully weak even with STAB Return, and Jasmine was an absolute nightmare with her bloody Steelix. But a pink Furret was a lovely surprise!

Wytchwood
This had a really lovely visual style and a very satisfying gameplay loop...but not much else, unfortunately. I feel like they could have done a little better with the story here, and whilst I'm not usually one to cry about the lack of a postgame, I do feel like this ended before I was really ready for it to end. I would have liked a little more. But what was here was of a good standard, which is better than a bad experience outstaying its welcome I suppose!

Super Crush KO
This was cute and handled pretty well, which is probably about as much as could be reasonably expected for a game about finding your cat that some random person stole because reasons, haha. Never been a huge fan of side-scrolling brawlers (one too many bad experiences with the original Streets of Rage in my youth) but this was pretty solid.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition
This has not aged well at all. The gameplay is painfully bad, and whilst I enjoyed most of the chapters as standalone experiences, the game really did not bring it all together in the final chapter. Junko is an absolutely terrible antagonist. I was better off with just my memories of this, it's really not suited for replays.

Pokemon Emerald
My Linoone playthrough! Went with this over ORAS because it's been a very long time since I played Emerald and I wanted the complete Gen III experience, which in my opinion you can only get through Emerald. Never liked one team being completely excluded from the proceedings in the Gen III titles. Anyways, this was...fine. STAB Return just breaks the game, really.

The Company Man
I picked this up because the premise amused me, and whilst I finished it in an afternoon, I really enjoyed my time with it. It was a little TOO on-the-nose at times with its level and enemy design, but as an office worker I found its take on things extremely entertaining.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars
This was amazing. Exactly what I'd expect from Yoko Taro's mad genius. The narrator's dry, thoroughly bored-sounding voice was the perfect complement to the story, and I really enjoyed the unique presentation, even if it was basically just another easy turn-based JRPG. The DLC was nice too; can never go wrong with the NieR soundtrack.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus
This was a great example of an addictive gameplay loop wrapped up in mediocrity and unnecessary systems. Gathering resources eventually out-paced the need for resources, making purchasing items for crafting more cost-effective, but money was always a bit of a tight resource because it relied upon catching Pokemon...which relied upon crafting. Ah. Narrative-wise this game was dreadful, visually it was appalling, and battles ranged from miserably easy to extremely aggravating as for some reason it was decided you can't use more than one Pokemon at a time. Also, fuck every level 4 Shinx chasing me across the entirety of the map.

A Winter's Daydream
Eh...this is probably the weakest ebihime VN I've read. It didn't really captivate me the way her darker, edgier works tend to do. Probably because I read VNs for the drama. I like a good, overdramatic story. This was a bit too fluffy for my taste.

Kirby Star Allies
Couldn't wait for Forgotten Land, bought this. It was...fine. I like the gimmick of combining powers, it made for some fun combinations. The lack of difficulty didn't really bother me, I know better than to expect any kind of challenge from a Kirby game. That's what Mario's postgame is for. It was a good time!

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX
So I played this on Switch in Japanese in preparation for Sophie 2, which I really should go back to. As a reboot of sorts I feel like Sophie is just a tad too basic with its systems, but it has definitely aged better than Rorona, and I like how the characters will interact with one another and not just with Sophie. There's a real sense of community here and it's great. I wish Oscar didn't exist though.

Ocean's Heart
This was...fine. It was a 2D Zelda without that special little flair that makes 2D Zelda games memorable. With a little more effort put into its worldbuilding it would easily be as good as a 2D Zelda title, but alas, despite the great pixel art...that's really all it has going for it. Good pixel-art indie games are a dime a dozen these days.

Aspire: Ina's Tale
Every now and then I'll try an obscure indie title, just for the sake of variety. Sometimes I get lucky and have a great experience, other times I get bored out of my skull. This was unfortunately an example of the latter. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to give a shit about a game if it doesn't give me a reason to; I'm not going to take it on faith that I should care, or that there is some deeper meaning here. This was a complete waste of time.

Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden
I fucking hated this. Swapping out the narrator was the second worst decision they could have made...the worst decision was locking the levels and equipment of guest party members. It made the final boss an absolute nightmare that came down to RNG more than it did to skill, and I had to restart several times. Between phases. Yeah, I was not especially amused by this game's design. Considering how fantastic the first one was, how highly I think of Yoko Taro, and how quickly this came out after the first...this has easily been the biggest disappointment I've had this year, at the time of writing.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition
Ugh, this game was somehow even worse than the first. The gameplay is supposed to be more involving and enhanced, but that just makes it even more tedious to play through! The narrative has the same issues as well: good chapter-by-chapter, but an absolutely rubbish conclusion, made even more so by Junko being forced into it. Arguably a better cast than the first, though. Especially since the annoying freak character – Teruteru – is killed off in the first chapter, whilst Hifumi endured in the original game for far too long.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero
I didn't think much of The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince outside of its storybook visuals, but I think I enjoyed this a lot more. I still think NISA were extremely lazy with the localisation (it has ONE voice, it wouldn't have killed them to hire an English voice actor!) and it was a little grindy even for me (think Chargestone Cave levels of random encounter rates, then multiply it by three) but the sidequests were worth doing and built up a really nice world around a simple and cute little story. Plus the special edition cost the same price as a base physical game and included a lovely artbook, soundtrack with works by Akiko Shikata, and an adorable little plushie. Yay!

Record of Lodoss War – Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth -
Meh-troidvania. I know nothing about Record of Lodoss War, and after playing this I still know nothing of it. It feels like you don't need to, but also that you kinda do, in order to play this and get the full experience out of it. It played just fine, but it wasn't really all that engaging, and nor was I motivated to explore. Not as bad as, say, Metroid Dread, but far from the pinnacle of the genre.

Elden Ring
This was it, the open world genre finally clicked with me...or so I thought. After a fantastically strong beginning, this game absolutely ruined it by having a painfully linear ending few hours with some of the most badly-designed bosses in FromSoftware's games. Don't even get me fucking started on the final boss. Several months later and I'm still extremely bitter at how bad this game was at the very end, after I got thirty or so hours of solid enjoyment out of exploring the world and overcoming the various bosses in my own way and my own time. After the Fire Giant that was pretty much it, though.

Pokemon Platinum
My Bibarel playthrough! I'd played through Shining Pearl recently, so Platinum was my game of choice. It was fine. STAB Return saw me through the worst of it, and I just buffed the hell out of Bibarel with X-Items with Cynthia, since her Spiritomb is pretty useless...and no way is her Garchomp surviving a Return coming from a 5 X-Attack boost.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land
This was...pretty good, actually. A more accessible and enjoyable version of Super Mario 3D World, perhaps. I didn't really struggle with any of the challenges, although the boss missions were very aggravating at times. The gacha can go and die in a fire, too. Didn't bother with that at all, although having that "this is unfinished" feeling still gnaws at me. Nightmare in Dreamland is still my favourite Kirby title, but I think this was a good step forward for the franchise.

Death's Door
I...don't see what all the fuss is about with this one. It plays well enough, and I thought it was tough but fair – I died a few times, but I never really struggled, and I did feel some sense of accomplishment when I beat a boss after learning its attack patterns. Well-designed, to be sure. But not especially memorable for it. I've played better.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
I was not expecting much out of this, but I adored it. It's a fantastic narrative expansion to the original Final Fantasy, and whilst I think Square Enix absolutely ruined it with their marketing (come on, giving us Jack's second name kinda ruins the whole plot) the combat was absolutely solid, the music was brilliant, the job system was surprisingly well put-together, and despite the relatively straightforward nature of it I found it to be the best FF experience I've had outside of a remake/remaster in a long time. More than worth my time and my money.

Spiritfarer
Another pretentious title that tries its hardest to have an emotional and meaningful message to impart and falls completely flat for it. I really didn't care about any of the characters in this, although I have to admit I did kind of miss the annoying frog once he just suddenly...vanished. I liked the lack of conclusion his story had, because he was constantly in your face and he never got a send-off moment; he just buggered off and that was that. Really weird. But the gameplay loop was addicting and I spent about 30 hours on this over a week, which is unusual for me as I tend to take my time with games these days. But this was practically all I was playing whilst I was playing it, so it must have done SOMETHING right.

Pokemon White
This is the first time I have played a Gen V game since the games were first released, and it actually wasn't as bad or as tedious as I remember it being back then. My solo Watchog playthrough, and the Elite Four actually gave me quite a bit of trouble, Marshal especially. Fucking Fighting-types. But this was less of a challenge than my HeartGold run was.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands
It's been years since I played a Borderlands game. I didn't finish Pre-Sequel, because it was awful. I just never got around to 3. This...was pretty great! It reminded me of why I enjoyed the first two games so much, and the added fantasy tropes and references (that entire Smurf questline, OMG) made it more appealing to me personally. Fun loot system, too. Bit of a rubbish main story, but really, Borderlands and story have never really gone together. I had a good time with this.

Cupid Parasite
As far as otome titles go, this one was...a little above average. It wasn't as humorous as I'd been led to believe, but I had a good time with most of its routes. It hit a lot of the same story beats as Cafe Enchante though, which was a bit of a put-off. But Raul Aconite in particular really stood out to me for his very frank approach to sex, which isn't something you see often in games like this. Allan's route was TERRIBLE though. I hate controlling/dominating characters in otome titles. Lynette as a protagonist was all over the place, too. Also, I really like the OP.

Pokemon X
The Diggersby run, this was pretty unremarkable. Got myself a Bunnelby with a decent nature, Super Trained the hell out of it for Attack and Speed, and that was pretty much that. Diggersby doesn't have a bad moveset all things considered – Return and Earthquake covers anything not a ghost with levitate – so this was a quick and easy playthrough.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
It's been years since I last played a LEGO game, and this has actually inspired me to go back to play some of the more interesting-looking ones that I missed at some point. It didn't quite manage to make the sequel trilogy any better, but the time I spent with it was incredibly fun and I'd love to come back to it on Steam sometime and 100% it.

Forager
This was very, very addicting. But after a while it started to get a bit boring, because my resource generation couldn't keep up with the pace I was playing the game at. At least half of the 30 hours I put into this was time spent idle, waiting for things to finish crafting, or regenerate, or spawn. It felt like I did less playing and more waiting, which kinda sucks when what little there is here to actually play is pretty good.

Grapple Dog
This was an extremely frustrating experience and I don't want to talk about it.

Neptunia x SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars
This coming to Switch finally persuaded me to give it a try, and...well, I wish I hadn't. It wasn't very good. In terms of gameplay Action Unleashed was better, the lack of English voice acting REALLY put me off, and...eh, I didn't really the feel the desire to experiment with the other characters. I just used Noire.

Ghostwire Tokyo
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. The main story was pretty awful, and the lack of enemy variety really started to grate after a while. The default camera sensitivity and movement was really off as well, I had to adjust it pretty aggressively to get a smoother gameplay experience, and even then it was still very awkward moving around at times. But the world was really well-designed, and the sidequests were the real highlight. But this is a game I would not want to spend a lot of time in, there is far too much meaningless crap to collect and not enough of a reason to really hang around in it.

Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD
I think I might have actually enjoyed this more than I did the original Final Fantasy XV. The narrative didn't seem quite as awful, and even if the gameplay was very bare-bones it was still pretty fun for the most part. Kinda amused.

Towaga: Among Shadows
This was fantastic! It was another one of those games I ended up finishing in a day, but that was because I enjoyed it too much to put it down. Such simple yet addicting gameplay. Really atmospheric music and interesting visual design, too. I'd love a sequel to this, or just another game like it.

Sparklite
Did not care for this at all. Upgrading was a pain in the arse, and the final boss...fuck the final boss. The difficulty spiked pretty wildly at times, and because upgrading was such a chore the grind felt very forced and artificial...and this is without factoring in the RNG in getting upgrades in the first place. Ugh.

Graceful Explosion Machine
Another game I played through in pretty much a single sitting. It was simple, colourful, and relatively satisfying, considering how much I paid for it.

Salome's Kiss
Oh my god, that ending. This was no Sweetest Monster – and thank god for that, I don't think I could take being that disturbed again – but...well. All I would say is go and read it if you're curious. Read Sweetest Monster too, it's still ebihime's best work.

Pokemon Rumble World
I replayed this casually when I was supposed to be working, haha. Good for short bursts of gameplay, and not as frustrating as Super Pokemon Rumble with its frankly terrible recruitment rates.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
This is Rogue One all over again – a perfectly adequate-seeming thing that is completely shown up for just how bad it really is by having one extremely memorable sequence at the end featuring Darth Vader. I didn't really realise just how mediocre this game was until it had me fleeing in terror from Vader at the end whilst he smashed the hell out of the base just to get at me. Nothing else in the game really compared to that...which is a shame. It really was Rogue One's corridor scene all over again.

Star Fox 64 3D
Y'know, I don't think I ever beat Lylat Wars on the N64, I could never get past Andross. This time I did. Felt good. Glad this game let you turn the gyro controls off, although it would have been nice if it had not asked me every single time I booted it up if I wanted to turn them on. No, I'd like to play the game properly, thanks.

Labyrinth Legend
This was...fine, I guess. I've played worse. But I'm not really sure why I bothered to play it at all. It was a very unremarkable experience.

The Pathless
I liked this more than I thought I was going to. I initially found the lack of a map very off-putting, but the mask worked well enough for finding where I needed to go, the bosses were all quite exciting and well-designed – they reminded me a lot of the Shadow of the Colossus titans, actually – and visually this game managed to just about avoid being eye-blisteringly painful...most of the time. But FFS. Hire proper voice actors or don't fucking bother. I HATE made-up language voices in games.

Oceanhorn
A very good not-Wind Waker experience, although the final boss was a bit of a crapshoot. It also felt a bit unresponsive and awkward at times, remnants from being a mobile game no doubt. But not something I can say I regret playing.