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Returnal (PS5) by dkirschner (Oct 28th, 2025 at 15:53:42) |
I started this about a year ago on a PS Plus subscription and dove back into it for a while on this current subscription. If I recall, it was about 6 hours last time and another 12 or so this time, so I had some really in-depth sessions last week. My initial notes last time just read "hard, grindy, neat vibe." I can say after another 12 hours that these three descriptors are still accurate!
Returnal is a third-person shooter / roguelite / bullet-hell game made by Housemarque, who is known (to me) for shoot-em-up / bullet hell type games like Outland, Resogun, and Nex Machina. The move to a AAA third-person shooter somehow works and retains the insanity of a typical 2d bullet hell. You play as an astronaut named Selene who crash lands on an alien planet after following a mysterious signal, and then finds herself stuck in a time loop. There's the set-up for a roguelite then. When you die, you restart at the crash site, slightly better off than the time before thanks to a slow-and-steady drip of persistent unlocks and upgrades.
Selene explores various biomes, following objective markers. The biomes are pretty big and have randomly generated layouts, so every run is a bit different (though after 18 hours, biome 1 was getting really fucking repetitive). Layouts are also branching: there are main and optional paths. Following the main path will eventually get you to whatever objective marker you're following, the boss, and the way out. Optional paths feature all manner of special rooms, which can have everything between great loot to deadly minibosses. The randomness in the design makes runs ridiculously intense. You constantly have to make decisions where one outcome could help (from slightly better than neutral to overpowered boon) or hurt (from a slight annoyance to dooming the run). Such decisions can involve whether to open a chest, use an item, go into a room or not, switch weapons, acquire a parasite, pick up a health kit now or later, spend more time in the current biome or leave it for the next, and so on.
Here is the anatomy of my 18 hours so far:
0-6 - Learn the basics in biome 1, die die die. Not sure if I ever even made it to the boss.
6-12 - Re-learn the basics in biome 1 after not playing the game for the better part of a year, and feel like I'm starting to get a good grasp on mechanics, enemies, strategies. Make it to Phrike, the biome 1 boss, a few times.
12-16 - Have a godly run where I finally kill Phrike, and then proceed to one-shot biome 2 and nearly one-shot biome 3. I would have one-shot biome 3 except that I FORGOT TO USE A HEALTH KIT during the battle! Uggggggggh! The boss and I were both almost dead. Like 3 more seconds and I would have killed it. I was so engrossed in the battle that I forgot I had purchased a major health kit that would have restored me to full life. I cannot believe I did this. /cry
16-18 - Demoralization makes me suck at the game. Never make it back to biome 3. Cry some more over the unused health kit.
I learned that when you beat biome 3, then you forever after can start your run in biome 4. Since I failed to use a health kit, and therefore did not beat biome 3, I had to start back in biome 1 AGAIN. This was really demoralizing and after playing a couple more hours, I decided to start another game instead of beat my head against this one. Although, I know that I can best Returnal! I just need more time. The run where I did so well (and every run before that), I meticulously explored the maps, killing lots of enemies (and therefore leveling up my weapon proficiency, which makes you find stronger weapons), getting lots of good parasites and artifacts, and boosting my max HP. After the run where I forgot to use a health potion, I was just zipping to the next biome as soon as I found the teleporter, but as a consequence, my weapon proficiency was lower, my max health was lower, and I didn't have many good parasites or artifacts, which meant that everything was relatively harder. Although my skill had increased, it didn't make up for having like 25% less proficiency, health, etc. So, I need to (a) continue getting better at the game and/or (b) continue moving slowly and completely exploring biomes as I go so that I will be strong enough to tackle the challenges that the game springs on me. Since I'm on a PS Plus subscription, I have other games I want to play, so I don't want to spend too much on this one, as it could potentially take quite a long time to beat. If I have time left after finishing the others I want to play, then I'll come back. Or I might just buy this next time I see it on sale, or perhaps I'll just wait for its spiritual successor to come out next year.
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Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania (PS4) by jp (Oct 21st, 2025 at 12:33:36) |
I played this for a few hours. Mostly I wanted to see where things were at with Super Monkey Ball. I wasn't expecting to find a wildly different or innovative game - just super monkey ball... which is what I found, though I did spend more time on the minigames.
I've never been a huge fan of Super Monkey Ball - and I'm sort of surprised by how little love it gets in the context of people who like to play games that are really hard. This game is like Super Meat Boy (oh wow, I just realized they're both SMB! Which is also Super Mario Bros...). I mean, clearing some levels isn't THAT hard - but to get all the bananas AND record times? This is some serious dedication IMO. Lots of practice and real finesse.
Cool stuff?
Well, I quickly unlocked Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza series), Sonic and Tails, and "Jet"? (the skater from Jet Set Radio). I thought it was a nice touch that when you pick these characters instead of bananas you get pill bottles, rings, and spray cans! (like in their original games). The sounds are even different! (with the Sonic ring sound being particularly memorable for me).
I then played all the mini-games. Some are more fun than others - and the be fair I was either playing solo or against AI, which is probably the less ideal way to play. I was surprised by how hard some of the games were! There's one in which I was only able to score once! (forget the name, but it's the one where you roll down a ramp and then up into the air - you're supposed to open the capsule to glide/drift to a target to get points. I only landed on a target ONCE. Everything else was a splash into the water because I fell far, far, short of the intended target. So, clearly there's something going on that I didn't understand - how to glide or whatever. And, many of the games have more sophisticated/complicated control schemes than you'd expect for a "mini-game". I thought it was interesting how they're all adapted to "your character is in a ball" - while still being "true" to the original game they're riffing on (lots of sports mini-games - the baseball one was interesting because it's sort of like a pinball in that you have to hit targets to get on base and stuff like that)
Anyways, it was fun - but I decided I wouldn't spend all this time on it either...
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The Wizards (PS4) by jp (Oct 18th, 2025 at 19:08:11) |
I'm slowly dragging out the PSVR games to play them. Strangely this one was a more recent addition - it was cheap, and the back of the box lists all sorts of awards.
But...
I must have played for 30 minutes or so? Didn't finish the tutorial. I started to get nauseated - not uncommon in VR. But, the game wasn't really working for me either, which was a shame. Especially since it took me a while to get everything ready since I had to charge up both move controllers (one at a time!).
The premise is simple, and fun enough, you're a wizard! And you cast spells with your hands doing different motions. I only got to see three things - the teleport action, creating and throwing a fireball, and summoning a protective shield. This was fine. The bigger problem I had was that I was never able to figure out how to adjust the facing. It always felt like I was facing to the side (90 degrees away from the TV) and never re-centering. And, since I was mostly facing away from the TV - lots of the hand gestures worked poorly because my hand/arm was obscured. Weirdly, this seemed like the default setting! So, I'm sitting, facing ahead, and the game then instructs me on how to do the fireball with "ghost" hands - that are off to the side...
I went into settings and stuff and couldn't figure it out. This might be a "user error" situation? Anyways, the nausea was enough of an excuse for me to just uninstall the game. A shame really. I wonder if the version that won all these awards was on a different platform?
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Crow Country (PS5) by dkirschner (Oct 15th, 2025 at 16:25:14) |
Bought a new TV (old one died two weeks after moving), ditched the aging surround sound system (waiting on a sound bar for replacement), and upgraded my HDMI cable so that the PS5 can output 4k at 120hz. So naturally, I subscribed to PS Plus to bask in my upgraded setup and promptly selected a PS1-style game that could probably run on a toaster.
Crow Country is better than it has any right to be, a totally adept and captivating survival horror game. You play as Mara, a woman investigating a derelict amusement park near Atlanta, Georgia. I was so surprised to see it set there that I thought the devs might have been from there, but no, they are British. I am still curious if they are familiar with the old (unfortunately named) Dixieland (now renamed "Fun Spot") in Fayetteville. Anyway, the park has been closed for a couple years and there are rumors of monsters. Mara discovers that, yes, there are monsters, and that there is quite the mystery to uncover.
None of this sets up Crow Country to be particularly great or anything, but every aspect of the game clicks just right. It's like a small-scale Resident Evil or Silent Hill. The story is interesting and leads you deeper and deeper into the park. The characters are intriguing, each with their own motives related to the story. The Crow Country amusement park itself is detailed, well laid out with several distinct areas, and creepy. The enemies are gross and dangerous. The puzzles are relatively simple yet clever (I got 8/15 secrets). The combat is very old-school-survival-horror, frustrating as that can be. Aiming can be a pain in the butt, but the thing I liked least about the combat was that enemies can corner you. I died probably 5 times, usually from getting cornered (though one time from ignoring a warning about pulling a book from a shelf that was titled something like "Sudden Death" and getting a spike to the face) and each time, you go back to your last save, which could have been a while ago, thanks to some old-school design.
I'm most impressed by just how tight everything felt. There are "staff memos" all over the park that give you clues as to how to acquire items or solve puzzles, and I was never truly stuck. If I thought I was, I'd go back to the collected staff memos and flip through them for a reference to something I hadn't done yet, then focus on that. A couple times, not knowing where to go after getting a new key, I stumbled on a room that needed that key. Locked doors are marked on the map, and unsolved puzzles are circled, but there is never any indication of what items are to be used where (i.e., all locked doors are red on the map; there is no differentiation between those that need a silver key or a gold key or whatever, even after you have discovered the doors). Luckily, the map isn't very big, and there is, if not a "fast travel" system, a "faster travel" system that you gain access to later on. So being stuck means there are only so many places you can look.
Definitely recommend for a short survival horror experience. It doesn't reinvent the genre or anything, but it's just so solid.
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A Highland Song (PC) by dkirschner (Oct 15th, 2025 at 15:46:38) |
I beat this a couple weeks ago and haven't sat down to write about it because I've been busy with the move. Long story short, it didn't really land with me. I like the premise. You play as a girl in the Scottish Highlands traversing the hills to meet her uncle. You have to reach her uncle in a lighthouse before Beltane (though I arrived one day late, and I don't know what would have been different had I arrived on time).
It's more or less a narrative exploration/platforming game. You run and climb through the hills, defying the rain, cold nights, and exhaustion. Occasionally, you discover objects or odd characters, and these piece together lore, a lot of tales of the mountains and the people who lived there. One reason the game didn't land with me is that these were small snippets of story, connected only through the fact that they relate to the Highlands. The narrator (the uncle) pipes up to speak for a few sentences to talk about whatever it is you've found, and then is gone again. These pieces of narrative feel disconnected.
The main reason the game didn't land for me though is the platforming and navigating, both of which I found frustrating, and are what you spend most of the game doing. Your character runs and climbs, but quickly loses stamina. You often have to stop and let her catch her breath. Running out of breath while climbing results in a fall and a hit to your health. Since you are racing the clock to arrive to your uncle in the lighthouse before Beltane, it is frustrating to have to stop all the time. But you do have to stop, at least to sleep, and it's often a good idea to wait out rain, especially if you are tired or it is dark. Pushing through exhaustion increases your chance of injury. If your health is depleted, you automatically rest and wake up the next day, which wastes time.
You have a map to navigate. You will find postcards and other things that mention various mountain peaks. You have some minimal zoom function to scan the surroundings to try and figure out where a particular peak from a postcard or whatever is. When you reach a peak, you can guess its name and have a wider view of the area to plan your next move. The goal here is basically to move from mountain range to mountain range, getting closer to the ocean (and the lighthouse) as you go. But you never quite know where you can move between mountain ranges. You are always looking for paths; sometimes, you'll think you see one, but you'll get there and there will be no path. Other times, you'll find a path but it takes you backward. I appreciate the exploration here, but again, doing this against the timer was frustrating, as was the fact that traversing the mountains can be so time consuming because there usually isn't a straight path left or right. You have to take higher or lower routes, winding through whatever mountain you are on, to try and get to where you are trying to go. You can see passable and unpassable routes on the map, so at least you can plan your route, though again, paths to the next range are something you have to discover.
The game reminded me of another climbing game I played last year, Jusant. I remember feeling in a flow state playing Jusant, focusing on the motions of climbing. There is one type of sequence in A Highland Song that did something similar, and I wish there was more of it. Those were the musical rhythm sections when you come upon a deer. The deer will run and you chase it. Rousing folk music starts playing as you chase the deer, and you time button presses to make the character jump. These sequences were engrossing. Honestly, I had thought that there would be more music in A Highland Song. I would have liked more of these sequences! Perhaps they could have been worked into navigation to make finding paths or reading the map clearer. Anyway, this is a short game, so I don't feel like I wasted my time. My least favorite inkle game, but still with its charm.
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Submerged: Hidden Depths (XBONE) by dkirschner |
| Pretty exploration game. Looks like Enslaved. -------- Simple collect-a-thon. |
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most recent entry: Wednesday 18 June, 2025
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Finished this up with Patrick last night. It's a simple, relaxing one that boils down to being a collect-a-thon. You play as a girl and her brother (one at a time, in third-person) in a world hit by some kind of ecological catastrophe. The old world (our society) was ruined a long time ago, flooded, and a subsequent society built atop our ruins was also ruined by your standard bad black and red "mass" of vines and stuff creeping over everything.
The girl has some sort of connection to the mass (it is actually called the mass) and can heal it, turning the black vines a vibrant green. There is a pretty visual effect where flowers bloom wherever she walks (it's a pretty game in general!). She can cleanse large areas of the mass by finding seeds and placing them into pods.
That's how the game is chunked into areas. It takes place in this one section of the world, you have a home base in the middle of the map, and there are 10 seeds you have to find to cleanse 10 areas. Since this is a water world, you drive a motorboat around, using your spyglass to locate the seeds, each of which is at the end of some light puzzle platforming on its own building/island in the water. It's handy when you're looking for the seeds because, as your base is in the middle of the map, each seed is pretty evenly spaced around it in a circle.
The puzzle platforming is simple. You navigate to a dock, get out, and...push forward on the left stick. There is no other button except pressing "A" to use switches and pick up things. The character automatically jumps and climbs as you move her. I said "puzzle platforming," but really, both of these things are really light. You don't have to think much to solve the puzzles or platform. That's why I said the game is relaxing (easy, pretty, no enemies, etc.).
As you explore the ocean and the buildings/islands, you can find a couple hundred collectibles, from little pictogram diaries to boat parts to cosmetic items to relics you dredge up from the ocean, etc. It would be easy to get sucked in to ticking all the boxes to find all the things on the map. It was funny playing with Patrick because he is more likely to do that than I am, and he kept wanting to go back and find diary entries and stuff that we missed that he could see on the map. So when he was playing, he'd take time to look for items. When I played, I just went straight for the seeds.
So yeah, chill game to play together. Positive experience. Nothing to write home about though.
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