Finished:
Almightree: The Last Dreamer - nice little puzzler
Gemini: Heroes Reborn - A short, simple game. Throwing things at people (and people at people) via telekinesis was surprisngly fun. For anyone else potentially struggling with a mandatory projectile-catching segment in late game - slow time (R), then deflect to auto-catch (C). Took me a while to work it out XD
Pillars of Eternity - Mixed feelings about this one. I was happy to play a new isometric RPG and there’s a few nice characters and well-written banter bits, but party interaction is probably less present in Pillars than in games it tries to emulate and quite often, for my taste at least, it’s trying too hard to be gritty and edgy, or mistaking piling taboo topics/images to the roof with mature storytelling. I don’t own the DLCs (if it wanted to be a proper expansion it wouldn’t be out in “parts”) but even if I did, likely wouldn’t play it.
Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom - A rather nice blend of genres/ideas, with JRPG at the core. Not a bad setting either. A little rough (a few crashes, somewhat annoying and unclear “affinity” doors, and (although only at one point), possibility to lock yourself out of 2 sidequests simply by choosing to speak to one NPC before speaking to another nearby) but enjoyable, overall.
Put aside:
Yooka Laylee - Burned out on it. I’ve actually enjoyed the colourful running around (expanded all worlds) but some of the char comments towards dinosaurs (and in general) are unnecessarily mean and one of the worlds was a somewhat distasteful choice.
Thanks for the update!
Could you elaborate on Yooka Laylee? What were the comments like and what was distasteful about the one world? Is it not kid-appropriate? I activated my copy on my six-year-old son’s account (but he doesn’t know it yet).
Sure thing. Slightly spoilerish, but the entire world 4 is a casino (and you’re actually supposed to play a slots-based minigame at least 5-6 times) - it’s a loud, golden, rather ugly area. As for the comments, again, slightly spoilerish, but a character in the game is a rather endearing (to me at least) polygon-ish T-rex whom you interact with to get access to arcade-style minigames and whom Laylee mocks for not being a modern game character. Laylee in general has quite a few snarky comments to many characters, not all bad, but some downright uncalled for/mean. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy playing it overall and a lot of the snark will likely fly over a kid’s head, but it did rather jarringly break immersion for me at times.
Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, it’s amazing how many characters from TV, movies, and games are smart-alecks and insulting…no wonder so many kids are disrespectful. Maybe I’ll hold off on this game until they’re older.