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BALL x PIT (PC) by jp (Dec 21st, 2025 at 14:13:17) |
So, I finished it - and there's a new game +, but it is now starting to feel really grindy.
I'm a bit annoyed tbh, but I realize I'm being stupid here. So, there's a trophy for clearing all the levels for each character (1 trophy per character), and when I triggered the "true" end of the game (prior to whatever the true ending of new game + is), it reset the pit - and it takes a lot more clears to get the next level of the pit, which means that I sort of have to play the game all over again, grindier, just to get those trophies if I really want them. And I kind of do, and kind of don't, but I would if I could go back to the regular version - because then it's less of a grind and more like "mopping up".
I did unlock some crazy new ball evolutions that was fun! (according to the in-game encyclopedia, I've now done them all). I might play a bit more, but mostly for "mopping up" - there's some item evolutions I haven't figured out yet, but we'll see how much more patience I have.
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Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (PS4) by jp (Dec 21st, 2025 at 14:08:07) |
I've played about three hours at this point, probably in the middle of chapter 2 (I'll see if it's the middle or not because I've just landed in a new area - the valley of something-or-other).
I think that one of the things I've enjoyed most so far has to do with the fact that I played the first game a while ago and I don't remember much about the details, but that it's all slowly coming back, but as a sort of warm fuzzy memory. I need to check details, but the games are pretty different - the combat system here is active, not turn-based, but was the first game turn based? I don't recall, would have to check. But still, the general vibes and wonder of the world is still here in interesting ways. The colors, the art, etc. - BUT, you can tell that it is all now one step removed from the earlier Ghibli collaboration. The style is slightly different - not off, or bad - just different. You wander around an open-world area, avoiding monsters if you want to, picking up loot (shiny glinting sparkles to walk over), and meet interesting characters.
This time around there are "higgledies" - strange creatures that have some sort of elemental assocation, they're like spirits, but not really, they remind me of the Kodama (the little white creatures that rotated their heads) from Princess Mononoke, but also the fire sprite from Howl's Moving castle. They appear in combat and you can trigger them to help out. They can also (if you have the "right one") help with things in the environment - for now a buried clover leaf that, when activated, creates an updraft you can ride to a higher location.
It's all sweet, and nice, and interesting. So, I'll keep playing until it is no longer that.
The only thing that's surprised me negatively is that the camera distance seems weird. Some areas are thirdperson, but kind of close, and the camera moves really fast and I just seem to get a bit dizzy as I run to the next location (they're super linear, tbh). The overworld view seems really pulled back - I like being able to see the scope of the scenery (super cool), but sometimes wish I could bring the camera in closer? I think I might need to figure out if I should play a certain distance from the TV...
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Assassin's Creed Unity (PS4) by jp (Dec 20th, 2025 at 17:17:37) |
The weirdest thing happened when I booted this up to play last night.
There was already a saved game! In my name! About 7% through the game - so, not very long or very far, but I couldn't remember playing this at all! I thought perhaps a family member did? Nope they all said. The saved game was from 2019...so , not TOO old - as in, if it was me, surely I'd remember?
Oh well, no problem, I'll just start a new game.
You can't.
I couldn't find anywhere in the interface where you could start a new game, delete your saved file, nothing! I googled, and everyone was saying you had to turn offsyncing with Ubisoft's Origin - which won't work because I'm on PS4 AND, the saved file is in Sony's cloud saves... and I couldn't figure out how to delete a file from there either. You can only upload/download...which was really frustrating.
Oh well, let's just play one of the first missions - see how it goes..
And, it goes poorly - not gameplay-wjse it's just that the whole thing was pretty buggy - I saw characters doing weird things (floating in the air, etc.) but more importantly - significant mission triggers - didn't trigger! I continued, and eventually they worked out...so, I decided to just move on to the regular missions and just be ignorant of whatever story had happened...
So, I start an assassination mission - kill a guy inside Notre Dame - neat. It says there are different entryways, alternate missions you can do to make it easier and so on including a short scene with a priest who's locked out at the top and complains his keys have been stolen.
I wander around outside, getting the lay of the land, and notice there's a target - person with keys - so I steal the keys! Yay! Making progress - and then I realize I can pretty much climb up the walls of the cathedral, so I do.
And then I get to where the priest was complaining - and I use the keys to unlock one door. The other doesn't unlock - the priest just stands there - I go around unlock the door from the other side, and still no effect. Later on I die..so I start over, but this time my characters (Arno?) automatically unlocks a door and the priest goes like "thanks". Oh! But then, nothing else happens...and then some other part of the mission gets borked.
At that point I decide to bail, because this game is now old - I'm playing, I supposed, the version with all the patches and fixes...amd it's still THIS janky? Wow.
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Banner Saga Trilogy (PS4) by jp (Dec 6th, 2025 at 14:27:00) |
I started playing this back in October - maybe earlier? - and it was really confusing for me. Mostly I kept making mistakes I blame on the interface. For example, I'd select a character, move it, and then try to attack only to realize that I wasn't adjacent to the enemy like I thought. So, I'd miss a turn, my characters would die - but, I moved on. In the sense that I know this game is supposed to be sad, there's attrition, you make do an move on. But overall combat was really fiddly for me - I'd bungle selecting characters, and I wasn't really understanding the system.. does facing matter? are there attacks of opportunity if you move away, etc. These aren't dealbreakers for me, I was happy to try to learn and figure things out, and since you can't really save, it just continues - I though I'd just see how far I could get. Especially since it seems really brutal! I think the upgrade points are basically how you heal? Only two points at a time - so, it really is attritional. Or maybe I'm really misunderstanding the progression system.
I did think it was interesting to follow the different stories - I have a hard time following the names and whatnot, but just seeing there were two groups, different character abilities, and such seems interesting.
Then other stuff got in the way and I wasn't able to continue playing for a few weeks.
I just came back to it, and wow - still the same UI stuff and ugh. I just don't feel like it's worth it to continue playing (a drawer full of other PS4 games doesn't help). I wonder if the console version is just worse than sitting at a desk on a PC? As in, would I make as many mistakes if I was on mouse and keyboard with the screen much closer to my face?
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Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS) by jp (Dec 6th, 2025 at 12:20:24) |
There's quite a bit to do, but most of it has started to feel a bit shallow. The dungeon exploring was perhaps my favorite, there's lots of exploring to do which was fun, and it isn't that hard, and the companion helper was also a neat idea (to be honest though, I kept forgetting to "activate") - but overall I'm looking at the stack of DS games I still want to play (it's been getting quite a bit smaller, which is good -since the 3DS pile now looms) that I've decided to shelve this one.
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
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2312 registered gamers and 3329 games. 7863 GameLogs with 13347 journal entries. 5121 games are currently being played.
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Halo 3 (360) by psettle |
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most recent entry: Friday 8 February, 2008
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Gameplay:
I got pretty far but about a couple of levels after my first gamelog, I had to change the difficulty to Heroic because it was just getting a little easy to get past levels. After I change my difficulty, a lot of unique stuff started to happen when I tried to kill my enemies. First off, the enemies AI went up almost a factor of 10. Now the enemy uses unique grenades to try and kill me off. Some of these grenades do different things, such as create a large impenetrable shield around the user for a short period of time, drain the shields off any person that is caught in its path, recharge any units shield that is within the range of it, and create like a wall that you can peek around to shoot at enemies. What made this really cool and challenging was multiple levels, the Brutes would through down Bubble Shields, stay in the bubble shield, and force you to come inside and kill them. This proved quite challenging because most of the enemies that stayed inside of these shields would carry large explosive weapons that would destroy you if you got too close. The Brutes would also throw drain grenades to drain all of my health and then come in to try and finish me off, or they would drop a recharge grenade and while I would try to kill them, they would heal at the same time, making my attack almost useless.
Another thing I thought was cool about the enemy AI was the use of the smaller Grunt units to perform some unique tasks to ultimately get me killed faster. First off, the Grunts would sometimes run to a Bubble shield that was active, so as a player you would want to kill them, but instead run after them, enter the shield to finish them off, and come face to face with the blunt end of a grenade launcher that had a pretty sharp edge to it. The Grunts would also come up to me sometimes holding two live grenades in their hands, trying to be like a kamikaze unit, and blow me up while they to were killed as well. I can't begin to count the times that happened to me, after I had just disposed of a group of Brutes in the same area. But the thing I loved the most about the enemies improvement was the semi-boss battles against these walking tank units known as Scarabs. In Halo 2, you only had to destroy 1 Scarab and were linearly led up to attack it because it stalled at a predetermined point so you could board it and kill all the enemies. But this time, you have to fire rockets or tank rounds at its legs to get it to crouch to the ground, then board it and destroy the reactor for it to be completely killed. This proved to be a challenging task because the Scarab would fire a large plasma beam that would instantly kill you if it touched you, so riding around in a slow tank trying to fire at it would ultimately end up in you dying about 80% of the time. But I loved how you are just 1 genetically enhanced super solider and you are able to take down this massive, destructive machine all by yourself.
Design:
One of the first things that makes this such a good game is the design of the enemy AI. Off the bat, you instantly can tell a huge difference in how the Brutes organize their attacks against you. In Halo 2, Brutes didn't have much of a personality and thus weren't able to construct well thought out plans of how to kill you. You could basically just launch a grenade at them or fire you rifle at them and they would go down. But this time they organize better and pull of some unique skills that make them a truly challenging enemy. I thought that the way that they commanded other units to kind of lure you to them was pretty interesting as well. The games new AI engine in general is just such an improvement over the other games because I had to really think out my attack plans before I would go in and try to blast my way through them. This time the enemy would take advantage of the unique secondary grenades, surroundings, and a better arsenal to try and eliminate me. The design of this enhanced AI system would scare away some players due to the difficulty of getting through the levels, but as a serious FPS player, this made for a much better gameplay experience and as such a more pleasurable feeling when you were able to kill your way through this onslaught of intelligent creatures.
Halo 3 also seemed to try and capture some of the elements that made the first Halo game a success. In this game, they brought back some of the older weapons, such as the classic assault rifle that was fully automatic and not just a 3 round burst mode, and the classic pistol, that had a small scope to it, over the pistol that was available to you in Halo 2, that didn't have a scope. This addition of the old weapons was great because I personally liked the old assault rifle, but at certain points in the game I would carry both the old assault rifle and the new assault rifle just so I could have one weapon that would be good for up close and personal attacks and something that was good for long range head shots.
The graphics in this Halo game were also a huge improvement over the second and first Halo games, due to the large amounts of detail that went into the environments. On one level, you are in a desert like area and you truly feel like you are part of a real life desert, but in reality you aren't. The designers also seemed to put emphasis on old, classic material when they thought of some of the levels. A small amount of the levels seemed to have similar aspects as those in the previous games. In particular, it seemed in the final level, that I was almost playing the same exact level as the first Halo game. Overall, the design of Halo 3 was beautiful and very well developed, and as such makes this final installment of the Halo series a great conclusion to a gaming series that has changed the way FPS are played.
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