The Game Journal

Keeping in line with my recent pinball obsession... Xenotilt! Though I played this game during it's early access period I haven't spent much time with it's 1.0 build and...it's about the same.

Xenotilt is a great game with maybe a *little* too much going on for me to handle. The game is FAST with a lot moving around the screen at any given time as well as putting an emphasis on...well, tilting. It's just too much for my easily distracted brain to keep up with, just trying to peek down at the corner to see my current multiplier could mean losing a ball.

I've been getting really into pinball lately and this one is an absolute gem of a pinball game. So far it's been the only pinball game I've seen that is actually committed to an acurate experience to what the original machines were like. Sure, PinballFX exists but I don't know, it's just not the same...and it has *way* too many liscenced pinball tables that I really don't care about.

It's given me an overall greater appreciation for pinball and it's history especially after watching Technology Connections' series of videos on how old pinball machines work. Pinball Arcade really feels like playing on an actual machine, opposed to a recreation of a pinball machine made for a video game (even though that's exactly what it is).

This was a fun one, maybe a little on the repeditive side though unfortunately. An RPG about going on a road trip in the early 2000s where instead of combat encounters, it's road encounters.

One of the things that did bring it down for me is despite being more of an RPG it feels a whole lot like a roguelike. Nothing is really set in stone except maybe the world map. Every event the game has is procedurally generated from encounters to the hitch hikers you can add to your car (party). The art and atmosphere are great, but the randomness of world events and the actual members you add to your car make the game feel like they put too much into trying to make the game "replayable" when the gameplay itself isn't really gripping enough to make me want to experience it all over again. I would have rather had a more solid, one-time experience.

MORE MONSTER HUNTER YESSS FINALLY IT GETS CLOSER WITH EACH PASSING DAY

I love monster hunter, probably one of my favorite game series ever (though I did start with world). This is why I WISH that Capcom would A) optimize their damn games and B) STOP. USING. DENUVO.

Every game that releases these days needs baggage and Monster Hunter Wilds get's it in the form of being an unoptimized mess! The game needs a super computer to run and even then you basically need frame gen to hit framerates over 70. I have 2 friends who have to upgrade their entire rig just to play this game and unfortunately...it's worth it

The game itself? I have zero doubt it will be my game of the year, I already have 50 hours in the beta alone every weapon, all of the mechanics...so FUN. I'll likely make another entry actually talking about the game more on launch.

Let him cook...

Crypt of the NecroDancer is one of my favorite games ever made since it came out in 2015. Cadence of Hyrule (the zelda spinoff) had me *excited* for it's launch but ultimately I found it disappointing, maybe because I left my expectations too high. Now the year is 2022 and here comes the trailer for a new spinoff title featuring entirely different gameplay so I lowered my expectations accordingly this time. While still looking forward to the release it wasn't really at the top of my priority list especially after playing the demo.

Rift of the NecroDancer isn't a *bad* game by any stretch of the imagination but it's one that I genuinely find too *difficult* to enjoy all the way through. The way the game sets itself apart from being any other game like guitar hero or stepmania is each "note" is a different type of enemy with it's own movement mechanics. Sometimes you have to hit them on beat, sometimes twice per beat, sometimes multiple times across several beats... Now I do think the idea is cool and interesting, but it leaves me feeling like I'm constantly gasping for air trying to comprehend everything the game throws at me, it's just too much most of the time. I DO play the game on hard because like most rythm games, the hardest difficulty is usually the one most true to the song while other difficulties are more boring and too easy.

A neat game with good ideas, just an execution that's hard to wrap your head around at times. The music is also pretty hit or miss in my own opinion. Big fan of Danny Baranowsky and Jules Conroy in particular but a lot of the other artists don't really do it for me the same...

I suck at this game !

Pure first-person speedrunning action.

I saw a glimpse of this game around the time it game out and without doing any looking into it at all I straight up thought it was a visual novel with gameplay between segments. I hadn't heard of anyone playing it until very recently when it popped up in my recommended. That's when it dawned on me the game actually looks incredible and I had to play it.

I have a bad history with these first-person platformer type games where you compete against your own time to beat them as quick as possible. SEUM didn't really resonate with me, I had a lot of issues with Hot Lava, Cyber Hook was a cool looking game with cool music but ultimately I didn't really dig the hook mechanics... Neon White was the first to actually exceed my expectations.

Every level in the game feels like a puzzle, I don't feel like I'm running through trying to optimize my path as much as I feel like I'm trying to "solve" the quickest way to complete the stage by doing things in the right order. That may not make as much sense on paper but I swear in my head this is the best way I can describe it.

The story elements are very...take it or leave it. Personally I leave it, skipping everything... but I'm sure someone enjoys it! It's really the only thing I can think about with this game I don't really enjoy. I wouldn't call it perfect but damn if it isn't *good*.

It's... peak...

I'm not a final fantasy VII purist so I enjoyed the remake a whole lot when I eventually got around to playing it. In fact I enjoyed it so much that the PC port for Rebirth had been one of my most anticipated releases for 2024 and I gotta say it's really held up!

As far as gameplay goes, literally everything about it is a step up from Remake. The combat is the same at it's core but they've really added a whole lot of little things that add up to a greater experience like deflecting attacks if you block in time and skills you can use with your other party members as you're holding block down. It's just great. On top of that, I've been playing on a dualsense controller so I get to benefit from all of the little details in the adaptive triggers and HD rumble for pretty much the first time and it wasn't as gimmicky as I expected it to be, I love it.

I have yet to finish the game (I've been streaming it to a friend and they haven't been as available) but I do expect this to easily be on my top 10 played games in 2025 unless some real BANGERS come out to take it's place.

Every third person action game is better with parrying (FACT)

This one is just a demo but I still feel like including it just for how much I like and man do I LIKE it.

As far as gameplay goes, it's quite literally just warioware. But it's warioware with a very UNIQUE artstyle/direction and for that I absolutely love it. The demo is very short (like 20 minutes max if you don't replay it) but I can't stop myself from coming back and have gotten about 3 hours out of it with the little content available.

I feel like warioware is one of those games you don't see many clones of, the only one I can even think of is Fishlike but that game leaves a looot to be desired... I still appreciate it's existance though.

WE <3 MICROGAMES

I finally caved in and actually bought early access to PoE2 and I gotta say... I don't regret it!

Diablo 2 is probably what I'd call one of my favorite games of all time and after the 3 massive disappointments for the Diablo franchise that followed it, I'd go as far as to think that it's safe to say the game that took Diablo's place is Path of Exile. There are other great ARPGs like Diablo such as Grim Dawn and Torchlight 2 but they never quite came as close as PoE...

Now with rambling aside, I can pretty confidently say I enjoy PoE2 waaay more than the first. One of my main complains of PoE was after awhile it hardly felt like I was playing a game but the sequel's combat and general gameplay was actually overhauled in a way I didn't expect...it feels like a normal action game! We finally got WASD movement, attacks make me feel like I have proper control over my character, boss fights don't feel like you're just throwing yourself at it over and over until it dies... it's amazing. And that's not even counting the numerous changes to things like flasks and skill gems. Not being forced to wear a pair of boots that are 16 levels below my character because they have 4 linked gem slots is going to feel SO nice.

We've never been so back

I've never actually played a Shantae game up until now, I've only ever recognized the series for having great music. In fact it was a video game music quiz that got me wondering how much a key for the game would cost to begin with, which as it turns out, very cheap! Now I've got both this and half genie hero for less than 4 bucks.

The game itself isn't exactly the most special thing in the world but I do absolutely love it's art and music. I'm glad it only seems to be a pseudo-metroidvania too because I'm a little burnt out on the whole metroidvania genre at the moment. Regardless, I'm still having fun with the game. Between all of the roguelikes and RPGs I regularly play it's a nice change of pace.

I did kinda have to install an entire program to limit the framerate though, that sucked.

I knew very little about Elin prior to actually playing it. I've heard of the game that came before it "Elona", but I'd never actually touched that either. What really sold me on the idea of the game was it's base building mechanics and it's randomly generated roguelike dungeon crawling. On top of those two, each bit more I've dug into the game has only gotten me more and more hooked and as of writing this I have around 75 hours of playtime. Learning how the game works has been a total pain in the ass though. So many of it's mechanics go unexplained and there isn't a ton of documentation on the game in english right now. I suppose part of the fun has been figuring most of everything out myself but some extra information would be nice...

Oh yeah, there are also like a million different unique skills to learn and level which is right up my alley for some reason. It's very satisfying to see a character level and progress in a game like this.

I haven't even learned every skill

I don't care if it's reputation is being a furry game where every character has outragous body proportions, I'll be damned if Atlyss isn't one of the best games I played in 2024.

It's a 3rd person RPG reminds me a lot of both an old school MMO and also ARPG games like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile, though admittedly much more shallow as far as loot drops go. The difference between those two and Atlyss is that Atlyss has a stronger focus on actually being fun to play. I will say though, the parts that do remind me of my favorite ARPGs are very shallow at the moment. Loot drops, while exciting for the first little while, start to remind me a lot more of terraria in the sense where you get the best item of whatever dungeon tier you're at, then reforge (enchant) it to fit your class.

It's supposedly only a third of the way complete though, so anything is possible.

Interesting mouse type character