September-October
Another 2-month post. I played a fair bit in September but forgot to post. Late on in September and October, I kind of drifted away from games though. My playtime dropped from over 40 hours a week to about 4. Just real-life things really and I guess no games really grabbed me enough. I have been playing quite a bit of Nowhere Prophet and I tried a few more demos during another one of those Steam events, but just not gaming much I guess. That didn’t stop me from buying though, as you’ll see at the end of the post!
Steam
Vanquish
Got this game earlier this year. I had been interested in it for a while but thought it might be a game I suck at! Looked like a fast paced arcade game that needs youthful reactions, which I no longer have. Thankfully, it wasn't that difficult. I played it on normal difficulty and finished it in about 11 hours before going back to pick up a few extra achievements.
It's not a particularly new game, released in 2017, and to be honest the graphics have dated a little. It's also very Japanese - the style of robots, movements in quick time events etc. Even the fact that your character smokes a lot and there is an action to light up a cigarette seems pretty Japanese (pretty late getting onto the whole no-smoking thing). There wasn't much of a story, think of your typical action movie and you'll be pretty close. It was fun to play though and the fact that I went back to get extra achievements shows that I was quite into it, I guess. Still, not into it enough to play through again in hard or do the challenges that would get me closer to a completition. So, another beaten game but at a very repectable (for me at least) 72% achievements.Wuppo: Definitive Edition
Not sure why I stopped playing this, maybe I got stuck. It's a very fun game! I actually started a new game as I was attempting it on 'Insane Mode'. Not something I would normally do, but it was a challenge on a Discord Server I frequent.
Starting off, it seems strange that there are different difficulties for the game as it is more of an adventure platformer than anything. There aren't many enemies and even on insane mode they are pretty easy to kill. Once you advance a little, that changes, and you encounter quite a few bosses. I think there are about 17 in total in the game. Some are optional, as you don't need to beat them to complete the game. There were about 3 that I really struggled with. Took me a long time to learn the patterns and the best way to avoid attacks for two of them. The third seemed more like luck than anything! I know that I spent over an hour on two of those.Haven Park
Played a demo of this recently in one of those indie game showcase things that Steam had. It interestyed me enough to follow the game and then I saw it for a decent price this month.
Cute, chill, and pretty simple game. You play a chick helping his grandmother restore and maintain camping areas. You run around collecting resources, fixing things, and building parts of the camp. It's been compared to 'A Short Hike', which I think I have on itch.io but have never played! Anyway, a nice easy game to drop into and relax with. Only took me about 5 hours to complete and I wasn't pushing myself to finish it. A nice little distraction and worth it if you can find it cheap.Tales of The Black Forest
Bit of a strange game. Reminded me a little of Yuppie Psycho, but to be honest it wasn't as good. The story was decent but it played more like a visual novel than a game. A lot of the time, you followed a set path and read the dialogue. There were times when you had the freedom to travel to different areas a little but to advance the game you needed to do a specific action or speak to someone. Some unnatural English in the translation and in my opinion, slightly bad taste to link the game story to real-life terrorist events (1995 Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo). I'm not grossly offended or anything and I'm sure there are much more blatant links to real-life crimes in other games, I guess the fact that the name of the game development company suggests it's Japan-based made me more conscious of it (actually a Chinese company). Anyway, overrated in the Steam reviews but was worth a play and I got all the achievements so it's a rare 'Completed' game for me.
Backlog Additions
Quite a few additions this month, although I’ve completed two of them already Haven Park and Tales of the Black Forest. The other additions are: Lacuna, ELDERBORN, Nowhere Prophet, Legend of Homebody, Neon Abyss, and Narita Boy. I’ve tried most of them and spent quite a lot of time in Nowhere Prophet, but not beaten any yet.
I also tried 11 demos during a Steam event. I wasn’t impressed by most of them, but the two that I enjoyed and will keep an eye on are Terror of Hemasaurus and Transiruby. Neither blew me away, but they were fun and I’d get them if the price was right.
I’m glad you beat Wuppo! I really enjoyed it. Also, as soon as I saw Haven Park I thought of “A Short Hike.” Now i’m interested in playing it