Spooky – Page 6

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: May 2022

~ Game Over ~

Evil Tonight (Switch) – A pretty darn good 2D survival horror game. Great pixel art, a unique story, and plenty of puzzles. I really liked this one, and am glad that I recorded my playthrough for YouTube.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS4) – While very similar in structure and gameplay to Lacrimosa of Dana, Monstrum Nox does a surprisingly good job of forging its own identity. I had a great time playing it, with my two complaints being that it’s a little too anime, and the trophies are basically copy-pasted from Ys IV and VIII. So, very minor issues!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2022

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Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ The Final Chapter (PC) – Another playthrough to generate YouTube “content.” So much fun, I want to play it again!

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch) – 100% completion. Excellent final world, and the Colosseum was notably easier than The Arena in most recent Kirby games. Mostly because the final Sword evolution is heckin’ broken.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (PS5) – You know, I think I might not be cut out for these high-octane, combat-focused action games. For all the things I like about Stranger of Paradise (and I like a lot of things about it!), the memories that endure will likely be of the incredibly frustrating boss battles, some of which took me multiple hours to win. I honestly don’t know what drove me to keep playing the post-game content…

The Sinking City

Do you know Cthulhu? I’m sure that you probably do. He’s a very popular figure in nerd culture. But here’s the real question: do you know much else about the works of H.P. Lovecraft? Seems less likely, as while Lovecraft’s greater oeuvre is also popular with nerds, it’s not quite as ubiquitous as ol’ squid-head himself.

I’m no exception to that assumption. I have a giant tome of the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft, but I haven’t actually read a page of it. However! I do appreciate the mythos he created, and I’ve spent plenty of time engaging with other media that is based on said mythos. The most direct source would be the time I’ve spent falling down the rabbit hole that is the Lovecraft Wiki. But also people like to make video games that are strongly influenced by Lovecraft’s stories! Video games like The Sinking City!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2022

~ Game Over ~

Vampire Survivors (PC) – This game is still in Steam Early Access, so it’s likely not really over, but I’ve won a few rounds and unlocked everything, so… yeah. You can read more of my words about it here.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Switch) – A complete revamp like this is exactly what the kinda-sorta stale Pokémon franchise needed. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s still so much fun and I hope that Game Freak makes another one in this style, but with just a little more polish. I was going to write a full review, but then wrote about potatoes instead.

Horror Adventure (PS4) – So bad that my PS5 refused to run it. Quite possibly the worst $2 I’ve spent on an indie horror game, and I feel like that’s saying a lot! The gravest sin it commits is having terrible controls: your character doesn’t always move in the direction you press the stick, and the turning speed is atrociously slow and cannot be changed. At least it only took 20 minutes to play through.

Banjo-Kazooie (N64) – I haven’t played this game since it was released on Xbox 360 back in 2008, and it was nice to re-visit. For the most part, it holds up pretty well, but some camera improvements would be appreciated.

The Sinking City (PS4) – Many words ~~coming soon~~.

Donkey Kong Land 2 (GB) – Perusing my 3DS library after the notice that the 3DS eShop is going to be shut down, I decided to finally play this. It’s the only Donkey Kong game by Rare that I’ve never played before. It sticks a lot closer to DKC2 than Donkey Kong Land did to the original DKC.

~ Progress Notes ~

Cyberpunk 2077 (PC) – Side-jobbin’.

Nintendo 3DS by the Hours

Following yesterday’s remembrances of the Nintendo 3DS, I decided to open up the records app and take a good, long look at all of the games I played on the system throughout its lifetime. I definitely could transcribe the entire list of 254 games, but I settled on just listing any game or app that I used for over ten hours. That’s still 74 different pieces of software!

Vampire Survivors: A miserable little pile of unlocks

I randomly tuned in to a Twitch stream last week, because the notification on my phone said the streamer in question was playing “the new Castlevania game”. I didn’t know there was a new Castlevania game!!

There isn’t. It was… somewhat misleading. The game being played was, in fact, a $3 indie game called Vampire Survivors. To be fair, this game does rip a lot of ideas (and maybe even sprites) directly from the Castlevania series, but it doesn’t really play like them at all.

And me, I turned around and immediately bought the game and sank most of that evening into it. Then I kept playing it pretty much every day after that. But more on that later!

Mysteries, not solved

I’ve never watched Unsolved Mysteries in my life, but it’s a show that I’ve heard a lot about. Matt from Dinosaur Dracula is a big fan of the show, and as such, I’ve absorbed plenty of information about the show from his websites and the Purple Stuff Podcast. Because of that, I’ve long since been interested in actually watching the show, just to see what it’s like.

Imagine my luck, then, to learn that (what seems to be) every single episode is available to watch on YouTube! For free! Time to learn about all sorts of crimes from the 80’s!

TE’s Top 10 Video Games of 2021

You know what this is. Rules are as such:

I had to play a game for the first time in 2021 for it to be a nominee.

That is all. The games are listed in the order that I played them. Let us commence!

A glitched trap

Metroid Dread was probably my most anticipated game of 2021, and it absolutely delivered. It was exciting and fun from start to finish, and very immaculately polished. A truly excellent video game.

To contrast, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach would have been my second-most anticipated game of the year, and it was… well, it was botched. While I did have a great time playing it, and I think there’s a good game in there, it is so broken and bugged that I wouldn’t fault you for calling it unplayable.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2021

~ Game Over ~

Ys Seven (PC) – I wrote about how I was struggling a bit near the halfway point, but the difficulty of Nightmare mode kind of cleared up after that. At least until the final bosses, which required a heck of a lot of grinding to beat. Still a very good game, just not one you should play on the hardest difficulty setting.

The Room (PC) – Having no relation to the infamous movie of the same name, this is a game about solving a series of puzzle boxes. It was a lot of fun, though the puzzles were maybe a little bit on the easy side. Took less than two hours to complete all five chapters, and I look forward to playing the sequels.