Made it to the third zone in adventure mode, and that's enough for me (for now maybe)

The core mechanic of Tumbleseed is so unique, one that requires a conscious brain-shift to learn and master, but unfortunately it's entirely dragged down by all the other mechanics around it. I won't pretend that i know a better way to flesh out the game into a full-fat feature, but i do know that this way isn't it

Planting different seeds seemed like an interesting strategic choice at first, and some of the powers felt genuinely useful, but i quickly realised all of them relied on dodging hazards and generally staying alive, which if you can do effectively, why would you need the powers? And if you aren't the best at avoidance, the set of seeds that you always start with provide all the tools you'll ever need

So progression is out the window, which leaves game-play skill, and yes, like i said earlier, there is genuine skill to be earned with the core movement mechanic, but not enough to carry me through to the end. Perhaps i underestimated the value of the seed powers, but i'm content with how much i've played already

Playing West of Loathing right after Felvidek was interesting, as there's so many similarities between the two. Narrative/writing focused, turn-based combat, crew of misfits, etc. Unfortunately the comparison ends up favouring Felividek, in my opinion, but without that comparison, i did have a good time

West of Loathing goes for more a of a quantity approach, with a bigger map, more and longer quests, and most importantly, more text and narrative jokes. It throws a lot of spaghetti at the wall, but a few good chucklers did manage to stick (which is saying a lot, for my un-jolly disposition). The best were the recurring jokes, usually weaved through quests to keep surprising - it felt like those were using the medium of video-game questing to the best effect

To add insult to injury, general life stuff prevented me from writing my thoughts down until now, so i don't remember a whole lot. I really should take notes or something, although perhaps the shorter review is better in some ways

If there's one thing Felvidek undeniably has, it's character. It's a character that hangs over the whole production, from its pixel-y art style, to its acoustic synth-y music tracks, to its delicious, humorous writing. I came away feeling like i had just enjoyed a lovely evening at a friendly stranger's house, where things seem unfamiliar, but no less warm and welcoming

Coincidentally i watched the movie Sinners recently, and its themes of cultural heritage, and the human "soul" of art, made me think about Felvidek in those terms. You can feel the cultural influence so well, that it's almost like having glimpses of that time period. It definitely awoke a hunger in me to experience more, but i'll settle for just more "like this"

A short game you could probably finish in a day, i would recommend anyone to try it out

And so i finally reached a point where i can call Nioh beaten. Wow, that was a long one. Why do JRPGs have a tendency to turn into a single-player live service game near the end? (maybe i'm generalising a bit). Nioh is a(nother) game following the souls-like model, coming from the folks who made the Ninja Gaiden series. In addition to the fundamental souls structure (bonfire-like save points, loss of upgrade currency on death, higher than normal difficulty), there's.. well… a lot.

We've got a combo system, specific to each weapon class and unlocked through skill trees, which feels slightly out of place in combat that's more focused on animations and stamina.
There's three weapon stances, which let you adjust your combat style between fast dodges and hits but low damage, to slower but heavy hits - a neat system that allows a skilled player to switch more effectively between defensive and aggressive play, but i imagine most people just stick to one stance for most of the game, like i did.
You can optionally spec into ninjutsu and onmyo magic skill trees, which are functionally equivalent to the spell systems from the Souls games. It's nice that you can dip into these for the ones you want, but a lot of it does feel a bit extraneous.
Weapons and gear follow a Diablo-style loot system, which feels so out of place to me. I've complained about this feature inclusion in other games so it might be a personal thing, but i think the randomness just leads to overall chaos, which is not exactly what you want in a souls-like

Story-wise you follow William, who travels to Japan in the Sengoku-era, intent to reclaim the guardian spirit stolen from him (guardian spirits are another important game-play mechanic). While there, he gets entangled in the battles of the warring states, and a cast of side characters. Some of these characters and events seem drawn from real-world history, with the yokai, spirits, and magic providing some supernatural flavour

The game is mission-based, rather than being set in a single connected world, which i was initially apprehensive of, but it turned out to have some of the best level design i've seen in a while. It will be contained to that level, but you've got the twisty interconnected-ness, with shortcuts and level gimmicks that i've actually been missing from souls-likes, as well as pretty good thematic design, which keeps each mission mostly distinct. At the end of every level is a boss to beat, and the combat design is slick enough that this is mostly a good time, but can sometimes veer into frustration

There's so many other mechanics and systems that i've left out, or didn't dive too deep into the details of. Nioh is definitely a well put-together game, but has a lot of these extra bits and pieces that make it feel messy. I still enjoyed myself though, and i'm looking forward to if/how Team Ninja have improved this formula in their later games

Already played this one (on PS3, a lifetime ago), and i guess i bought it to replay on PC at some point, but it was only the recent achievements added that really pushed me towards it.. i think i was also just in the mood for an uncomplicated Ubisoft open-world

Far Cry 3 still has a good bit of style; you can see they were flexing their creativity a bit, with the vibes of The Beach, sprinkled with the Alice in Wonderland references, and the light commentary on video-game violence being enjoyable (even if that enjoyability ends up making it sound a bit hollow)

Gun-play is still pretty solid, and Vaas is still such a believably unhinged villain. I haven't played any other Far Cry after this, as they all seemed like they were just trying to recapture this one.. maybe i'm being prejudiced though

Was also expecting to replay Blood Dragon, but my achievements synced across as soon as i opened it, since i actually played that one before on PC

Vampyr is a decently made game, with an interesting gameplay dilemma at its centre - kind of like Unsighted in a way, that i played last month

The gameplay is fundamentally a souls-like, although with no blocking, the gun off-hands, blood all over the place, and the Euro-gothic aesthetic, it skews closer to Bloodborne than any of the ones with souls in the title. The shake-up here comes from vampire "spells" fueled by blood taken from enemies - which also fuels your healing ability. Opponents are always resistant to one or two of the four damage types, so it makes sense to mix these moves into combat effectively. Not a world-shaking change to the formula, but combat does end up having a nice back-and-forth between sourcing blood to casting these spells

While it doesn't transform the souls-like base a whole lot, Vampyr prefers to use it as a solid structure to hold up the narrative. The main plot concerns the Spanish flu in Britain, wrapped up with secret vampire societies and ancient druidic gods, but far more interesting to me is the dilemma of the main character. You're a doctor who wakes up as a vampire, so right off the bat your oath to help the injured conflicts with your need to feed.

How this translates to gameplay is the interesting bit: as a doctor doing the night-shift (naturally), you'll spend a lot of time talking to patients and hospital staff, listening to their stories, solving their problems and occasionally crafting medicine to remove their illnesses - classic side-questy stuff. As you do this though, their "blood quality" goes up, which makes them more valuable as vampire food, and at pretty much any time they can be mesmerised into a quiet corner for such things.

I generally do the good boy route in games, so i resolved to not eat anyone at all, but XP comes in much slower from other sources, and the enemy levels don't wait around for you, so once you hit a hard spot of combat, seeing these literal bags of XP walking around with enough for a good health upgrade, really starts to look quite tempting. The characters you interact with are often clearly there to test your willpower as well - this guy is a violent criminal, surely it's fine to take him off the streets? or hey, this guy is a filthy landlord profiting from the crisis, isn't it better for all if he was gone?

The combat also being a bit janky doesn't help this conflict though (or maybe it helps it more, in a weird way ?), with dodges being a bit unreliable, and sometimes feeling like you got stun-locked to death out of nowhere. There were some very frustrating moments in my playthrough, and part of me wished i went for a "eat everyone" run - or just a few chomps at least, for some much needed health/stamina

An alright game overall, plus i feel like we need more of these double-A type games in circulation