June & July '20 Play Log
I really couldn’t be bothered to do a June post. My progress has been pretty bad anyway. The lockdown and things going shitty in general is kinda getting to me. Still, beat a few games and retired some others. I spent a lot of time playing Skyrim VR and No Man’s Sky as well which is part of the reason I didn’t beat many games.
Personally I find this game too challenging to be enjoyable. If engineering challenges appeal to you and you don’t get frustrated then you may enjoy this game.
Pros:
- Bridges get more difficult as you go
- Different materials add having to decide budget vs strength add more difficulty
- You can see the amount of stress on different areas of the bridge to see where issues are
- You can slow down the simulation when trying the bridge
Cons:
- You can’t ‘rewind’ the simulation if you go to far, you have to just start over. This can be annoying for slow cars on long bridges
- There are no hints, e.g. ‘try this pattern’
- Moving a joint by the subtlest amount can drastically alter how the bridge holds up, meaning completing a lot of levels just boils down to ‘move random joints until it works/holds up/is under budget’
- Often, coming in under budge with a bridge that isn’t single use (due to breaking) is next to impossible
I had started this game and abandoned it when it got too hard. It had some potential but was ultimately too frustrating. It also didn’t help that a lot of it was down to random tweaks and not just skill/engineering capability.
Life is Strange 2
5 hours playtime, 11 of 46 achievements (23.91%)
This one was for Play or Pay (by Cece I think). I bought it without looking into it too much because I really enjoyed the first two games. Turns out that was a mistake. When I play games I want a distraction from everyday life. This particular game is about racism and police brutality. Ring any bells? Ultimately it was just depressing me, I wasn’t enjoying it, and was forcing myself to play it. Games should be fun, forcing myself to play them defeats the purpose, so I dropped it.
Thoroughly enjoyable puzzle type game.
Pros:
- Enjoyable background music and sound effects
- A variety of trains with different speeds, lengths, and styles
- Cute, colourful graphics
- Levels start relatively easy and get progressively more difficult at a good rate, but don’t get too difficult
- You can pause time in the game, which makes later more hectic levels much more manageable. Similarly, you can speed up time when things are too slow
Cons:
- The main menu doesn’t show you what the goals for each level are, it just gives you a stamp for each one completed. If you want to see what goal you haven’t done you need to start the level.
- What’s the point of the annual tax? It seems to exist solely to make bankruptcy possible.
- The bankruptcy mechanic is infuriating. If you spend most of your money you should be able to wait for the next train to give you more, but if it’s too slow then annual tax will mean you go bankrupt and have to restart the level.
- Rogue trains. These trains appear and and promptly leave stations with no warning instead of queueing up and waiting for you to start them. It’s accompanied with a special jingle. This can easily mess up an entire level forcing you to start again to achieve the goals. Thankfully they seem to be very rare.
Verdict: 8/10
Another one I started and abandoned at some point. Thoroughly enjoyed it. It was challenging without being overly difficult. I actually ended up buying and beating the DLC as well.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
24 hours playtime, 13 of 75 achievements (17.33%)
This was June’s major timesink. Major impulse purchase, which is doesn’t happen much for me. TBH I regret buying it. Not because it’s a bad game - they’ve done a very good job of porting it complete with motion controls. Ultimately though, it’s the exact same game. I’ve spent over 200hrs on flat Skyrim so I’m very familiar with it. Once the interest in VR stared wearing off I got bored, so I’ve decided to bench it for a while. It doesn’t help that there’s no graphics updates for it at all. Yes I know, ‘but there are mods!’. But when I’m paying $65 (on sale) I shouldn’t have to spend several hours installing over two dozen mods to make it look halfway decent. And I never got them to work entirely right, it still crashes but it’s so infrequent I’ll never find the incompatibility with so many mods.
- Likeable characters
- Good music
- Unlike other Sakura games the protagonist isn’t a whiny uptight pain
- Adult patch ;)
- There was room for the story to be much deeper and longer, but it wasn’t taken advantage of
- I noticed a few errors in the writing, it wasn’t bad enough to bother me though
- The ending wasn’t exactly original, I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere else :P
- Somewhat interesting story that showed promise to be interesting if it had been continued
- Good music
- The story isn’t left on an ‘I can’t believe that just happened’ type cliffhanger, so that makes the lack of subsequent chapters a bit more bearable.
- A lot of pointless choices. I’d prefer fewer choices rather than choices there just for the sake of it.
- Incomplete. This seems to have been a chicken and egg problem. A lot of people don’t buy incomplete stories. The dev has said it won’t be continued because it didn’t sell well.
- No voice in the patched version. There is a guide to fix this though
Overall I quite enjoyed this VN. There aren’t any choices that greatly affect the story so be aware of that. It’s not the most engaging story ever written, it’s not bad though, and the characters are likeable. If you’re looking for something short, mindless, and relaxing (and sexy) you’ll likely enjoy this.
Pros:
Cons:
Verdict: 7/10
I have somewhat mixed feelings about this game. I think the main flaw is that while there were a number of choices, they don’t make much difference. At least one didn’t even result in a dialogue change. Others simply skip a section depending on your choice. It didn’t feel like it even made a difference to how your character is perceived.
Pros:
Cons:
I played both of these for July’s PAGYWOSG. Pretty decent. Thankfully Fantasy didn’t end on a cliffhanger which makes the lack of more chapters bearable. I’d have been curious to see it continued though.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game and highly recommend it. Your choices can actually affect the outcome of the story which is neat.
Pros:
- Interesting story
- Likeable characters that are very well voice acted
- Good music
- Choice affect the ending (though not the core story)
- The collectibles help explain the story and for the most part aren’t too difficult to find
Cons:
- Movement both with keyboard or controller is finicky and needs some polish
- Movement speed isn’t bad, but gets frustrating when you have to go back to areas you’ve been to. It either needs to be increased, or fast travel added
- Under some instances depending on where you are in the story you may not be able to get to certain areas, though there doesn’t seem to be a valid reason for this. It made me think I had locked myself out of a collectible.
- I have mixed feelings about the achievements that require multiple playthroughs. Rather than being related to the ending, they’re related to small aspects of the story that can change depending on your choices. To me they aren’t significant enough to warrant one extra playthrough, let alone two. I’m not convinced there’ll be enough change to keep it interesting
Verdict: 8/10
Played for PoP and quite enjoyed it. It was on my wishlist for a while before I got it so I’m glad I finally got around to playing it.
Recent Acquisitions
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
24 hours playtime
13 of 75 achievements - Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition
0 minutes playtime
0 of 50 achievements - Costume Quest
0 minutes playtime
0 of 21 achievements
Also Train Valley - Germany, Cities: Skylines - Industries, and upgraded HITMAN 2 to Gold Edition. All DLC though so the generators don’t work and I’m far to lazy to do it manually.
That’s it for now. Already dropped 2 games in August, so things are pretty much continuing the way they have been. I’m thoroughly enjoying Aragami though so at least that’s something. Hope everyone’s doing well and surviving quarantine!
I’m with you about impulse purchase xD
I didn’t buy Skyrim VR, but I bought Persona 4 on PC while already beating it on Vita (with probably 100+ hours as well). And I got the exact same regret now with Persona. I was happy to play it on PC, it looked nice also to play on a big screen but once you pass that, the game felt too familiar so I kinda benched it as well haha.
At least it’s not just me :P. Oh well, lesson learned.
Oh glad to see that sakura fantasy didnt end up on a cliff-hanger that would’ve been annoying. I know a lot of people love fantasy though so its to bad they couldnt have continued it
Agreed. From what I saw on the forums it looks like it wasn’t continued because it didn’t sell well. But I know a lot of people won’t buy partly finished stories in case they never get finished, so that’s very likely the reason it didn’t sell well.