BLAEO — Backlog Assassins Extraordinaire

Buddy Simulator 1984

7 hours playtime

22 of 30 achievements
Nuclear Blaze

4 hours playtime

20 of 20 achievements
Narita Boy

11 hours playtime

34 of 34 achievements
Mayhem in Single Valley

7 hours playtime

34 of 40 achievements
Celeste

70 hours playtime

28 of 32 achievements

October

A more successful month, 5 games assassinated and 2 of them completed! Whoop!

A few days before the end of the month as I’ve just finished Narita Boy and I don’t want to forget to upload this. I’ve been pretty slack in recent months.

Aside from gaming, not much going on. Kind of surviving rather than living life to the fullest. Just going through the motions at work, gaming and doing stuff locally on my days off. I’m looking into a trip back to the UK now that Corona restrictions are pretty much lifted in Japan (pretty slow compared to other countries) but the flight prices are putting me off a bit. It’ll probably be next Summer.

Steam

Buddy Simulator 1984

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Kind of an Indie RPG, I guess. It reminded me of a mix of games like Pony Island, Oneshot, and Yuppie Psycho.

Not a typical game and a little disturbing (at one point near the end at least). Pretty fun overall and definitely interesting. If you liked any of the games I listed above, I'd recommend it. Can't say too much as I think it will spoil the game if you know too much. It starts as a kind of text adventure and evolves into a RPG with turn based combat (kind of). Requires multiple playthroughs to get 100% so it's staying at a respectable 73% for now and into the beaten pile.

Nuclear Blaze

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Apparently this is a 'one man project' from a guy who was a game designer on Dead Cells. There's a kind of secret area that's Dead Cells-like actually.

Fun little platformer, not too difficult and quite short overall but lost of fun. Put out fires to clear rooms and advance through the game. If you're too slow, fires will start up again in areas you've already cleared, which was a nice gameplay element. Recommended, if you can find it one sale. A rare 'completed game'.

Narita Boy

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This was in the September 2021 Humble Choice (I think), so you might have this in your backlog somewhere! 80's style, retro platformer. Strange and fun.

I'll start out by saying, I didn't really follow the back story in this game (the 'lore', if you like). Japanese-American, guru, game developer, Tron type thing. Maybe I just don't pay attention enough!

Even without understand that part, I could appreciate the overall feel of the game. Starting out, I wasn't too impressed, to be honest. A little too pixelated and I wasn't entirely convinced by the feel of the game, or the movement of the main charter or something, at the start. I got more into it as the character learned more moves and combat started. Also, the music! Great stuff. Kind of in the background, so I wasn't always paying a lot of attention, but it still made an impression. When I finally beat the game, it kind of clicked that the music was a big part of the game. The final song was great too. Here's a link to the soundtrack on YT if you want a listen: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZYVH5HQi0g) Completed this one. A little challenging at times, but I always felt I was getting a little closer to beating the more difficult bosses, which helped me stay motivated.

Mayhem in Single Valley

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Not sure how to describe this one. I guess it's a roleplay-adventure game. Looks quite simple (almost like a flash game) but it's pretty long and fleshed out.

Lots of missable achievements in this one. I didn't really know what I was doing at the start of this game tbh, probably should have read some guides or something. I collected all these different items without knowing what they were for, then just used them randomly. That meant I missed quite a few simple achievements, and I don't have any save points around those sections of the game. I don't think I would have been able to get 100% though, as there is a LOT to collect and I'm sure I'd end up missing a few things. The main part of the gameplay isn't too hard and it's a pretty fun game. This was in a couple of bundles, worth a look if you can get it cheap but I wouldn't recommend paying full price. Beaten.

Celeste

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Pretty famous, so I'm sure you've heard of this one. Released back in 2018. Tough platformer, well tough for most people and nigh on impossible for me!

There was something in this game that made me keep coming back for more punishment. I'm not sure what exactly. I sucked at this. I mean, the average time to beat the main story on HLTB is 8.5 hours and 36.5 hours for completionists. I guess I was between those two levels of completition and it took me 70 hours!

I'm kind of over difficult platformers after this, to be honest. I still have a few in my backlog but I'll probably steer clear of getting new ones in the future even if they're very highly rated. It is a good game, but there were parts of it I found a bit annoying (aside from the difficulty!). It was a bit too new-age, touchy feely for my liking – that old chestnut of 'finding yourself' on a voyage of self-discovery. Also the strawberry thing was a bit random. But anyway, this game has a pretty big following and is highly regarded, so I'll leave it at that. Play it if you like platformers, laugh at how long I spent trying to beat it over a period of months if you're good at platformers! Beaten.

Backlog Additions

I finally took control of the buying and just got one game this month - Dying Light Enhanced Edition. Pretty difficult to get a good deal on a version of this that runs in Japan, but took the plunge. I’m sure it will sit unplayed for a few months and will be free somewhere before I get to it!