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Hollow Knight: Silksong (PC) by dkirschner (May 13th, 2026 at 14:58:07) |
Kicking myself for not writing an entry when I was playing this 6 months ago. I am cleaning up my wishlist, backlog, and etc., and the FEELING I get when I see Silksong "in progress" is anxiety. I had jotted a few notes in December, as follows:
"It’s true, Silksong is hard. Like, really, frustratingly hard. Like punishingly difficult. I hit a wall at the end of Act 1 trying to beat the Last Judge. The game likes to place benches far away from boss fights, such that retrying boss fights involves slogging back through tough platforming and other sections of the map."
I did kill the Last Judge and complete Act 1. I remember that took a very long time, and that after the Last Judge, I died a few more times and, probably, with shaking hands and rapid heartbeat, said, "I can't do this anymore." Actually, it may have been in one of those rooms with waves of enemies. This innovation is new and unwelcome to Silksong, rooms that lock upon entering and spill several waves of challenging enemies at you. Yeah, I think that is what got me, just being pummeled over and over in one of those rooms, getting tired of exploring the maze-like map, tired of dying, tired of corpse runs, just exhausted. The game became a chore.
Besides that, I loved it, haha. I was definitely into it for a while. It was sublime until it wasn't.
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Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (PC) by dkirschner (May 12th, 2026 at 17:20:35) |
I meant to quickly beat this back in April so I could have a "completion" for the month, but I got really busy after spending barely an hour one afternoon with Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, a bizarre little twin-stick shooter about a turnip...who robs a bank. The game builds off previous games in the series, which I have never played, in which Turnip Boy commits tax evasion and, according to this game at least, seems to have started a war. Work has slowed down for the first time in nearly two months, and while I wait for my next contract to begin, I figured I'd knock this out.
The whole game is silly. The world is populated by sentient fruits and vegetables. You are employed by a pickle / mafia gang leader to rob a bank of a garlic bulb / bad guy / killed your dad. You have a base, where you can get new weapon loadouts by bringing weapons from the bank (always try to return with something new or high-powered!), purchase progression items from the "dark web," and upgrade stuff at another vendor. You go on "runs" to the bank, which are timed (starts at 2 or 3 minutes, goes up to 5 or 6 with upgrades). Runs are over when you die or when you exit the bank. Die and you lose half the cash you accumulated in the run. Survive and you are handsomely rewarded. Upgrade stuff. Go back to the bank. It's a roguelite too.
The bank has a specific layout of rooms, but you'll encounter some randomized areas too, and enemies and treasure are somewhat randomized. Throughout the bank are tons of NPCs with little fetch quests that usually reward you with pictures (fun/ny to look at) or hats (fun/ny to equip). A blueberry might want you to find its wedding ring, a lime wants you to get divorce papers from her lemon husband, a scientist pineapple wants you to find a philosopher mango and ask it an ethical question about experimenting on fruits, etc. I had some good laughs.
In each corner of the bank is a boss. Boss fights were fun, but the most challenging were early on. Once you start upgrading stats, the game becomes easy. It definitely ends up being an "upgrade everything and go nuts on all the enemies!" type game, experience being overpowered.
I haven't played a twin-stick shooter in a while, and while this wasn't revolutionary or anything, it was fun and scratched the itch. I gotta get back to Divinity: Original Sin 2. I might have some extra time till my next gig, so maybe I can boot it up, remember what I was doing, and make some progress this week.
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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS) by jp (Apr 27th, 2026 at 22:04:52) |
I got to that point where I hit a monster/boss that just wasn't that much fun, and then I got a bit lost in terms of where to continue making progress, and the backtracking started to get a bit tiresome...as I explored and searched for different paths. So, time to bail!
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Legacy of Ys Books I & II (DS) by jp (Apr 27th, 2026 at 22:03:27) |
Can you believe that I capped out on character level? I hit level 24, with plenty of game to go (I checked a guide, though I had reached the last 20% or so) and that's it. No more levels. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, and I also started to tire of having to backtrack all over the place to talk to different characters and so on. It was fun, and surprising to me in many ways, it's an action RPG with real-time combat, but no real challenge or interest in the combat - limited items and gear, no significant shopping or upgrading...there's boss fights (which are much harder than the regular game), but there wasn't much there to continue to keep my interest. So, I've decided to bail.
I did also spend some time on the Wikipedia page and it looks like the game has been re-released a million times across different formats, and rebundled with new content, and stuff touched up and more. I'm kind of surprised because I wasn't all that impressed to be fair. As in, the game was fun and I enjoyed it for a bit, but I'm not entirely sure that it merits THAT much attention in the re-releases? Maybe I'm missing something and this game really resonated strongly with lots of people?
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Legacy of Ys Books I & II (DS) by jp (Apr 26th, 2026 at 10:06:39) |
I need to look up more info on this. I had assumed it was a bundle of the two first Ys games, but upon starting the first one (Book I), the 3D graphics make it seem like it's a newer game? So I'm really curious what the backstory here is...
It started out pretty frustrating - because I wandered into a field outside of town and died immediately. I had to start over which was a drag - lots of text to skip past, and died again! Sigh. I eventually figured out how to save your game, which helped. So, I decided to then book it, dodge enemies and made it to a city! Here I bought a sword and some armor...and figured I wouldn't die again immediately but I did! It turns out I hadn't figured out how to equip the items and that solved EVERYTHING.
I've been playing since, and the game's quite interesting in its camera perspective - it's a very unusual sort of 3D isometric view, but it's not at an angle, but rather it's sort of straight? (like vertical/top to bottom). It's a weird perspective because there's lots that gets occluded (if you walk down towards a wall, the wall blocks you from seeing what's close to it when you come from the top part of the scree). I mean, it makes sense spatially, but it's a weird perspective in a game - you also cannot rotate the camera AFAIK.
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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)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2323 registered gamers and 3357 games. 7894 GameLogs with 13388 journal entries. 5125 games are currently being played.
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Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (PS2) by Max_Seven |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 29 March, 2011
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Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus
Description
Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus uses plat forming techniques in a 3-D world, along with moderate stealth elements that make game focus on the indirect approach, then direct conflict.
The story
Sly Cooper is thief whose family heritage is built upon master thieves. The legacy of Sly’s family of thievery is written within the Thievious Raccoonus. A book that is consisting of the all Sly’s family master thieves techniques that can make anyone into a master thief that was stolen. When Sly was just pup, a group of evil criminals known as the Fiendish Five ransacked the house, murdering his father, and splitting up pages of the book among themselves. With nowhere else to go, Sly is forced to live in an orphanage where he met his two best friends Bentley, a technical genius and Murray lovable friend that had a knack in getting trouble. Once, Sly was old enough to left orphanage, Sly and his crew left to find the lost page of the Thievious Raccoonus, and restored Sly’s family legacy.
Presentation
Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus use a drawn cartoon cut-scenes for opening and ending the level as well. The animated cut-scene in the game is nicely done and looks like it fit well with the game. Sly Cooper parodies Solid Snake Codec conversation Otacon using dual monitor screens, transmission lines, and text readouts. Whenever Bentley give update to Sly about the situation at hand.
Gameplay
The player controls Sly through the many levels of the game relying most on stealth to avoid encounters and alarms in each unique lair of the Fiendish Five and sub section as well. The game tries to go for the one-hit-kill mechanic, in order to take an extra hit collect 100 coins to gain a Lucky Charm. The limit of Lucky Charms is two in total any more than that Sly gain an extra life. To use the stealth elements, the environment contain color areas called auras that allow Sly to perform a stealth move, such as shimmying on a pipe or along a wall, landing on pointing objects such as street lights, or spikes, climbing on ladders or rope, or using Sly’s cane to grapple on hooks to advance in the level. The game uses dynamic music mechanic that changes volume and pace of the music when Sly attacks, sneaks about, or is detected. In each sub section of a lair contains treasure keys which are used to allow other such sections such as obstacle to the boss’s lair and boss itself, and clue bottles, when all are collected Sly can access the vault of the sub-section that either contains the blueprints of the entire level to help find breakables for more coins and clue bottles in entire level or pages of the Thievious Raccoonus.
Abilities
Sly gain more abilities and can also advance recent abilities in the game by finding all lost page of Thievious Raccoonus, along with defeating each member of the Fiendish Five. The new abilities allow Sly to perform various moves and useful techniques, such as a dive attack, a defensive roll, slowing down or speeding up time, and my personal favorite the Shadow Power power-up perhaps the safest power-up in the game. It allows Sly to become invisible and to move undetected through alarms, laser, and guards.
Game Session
For my first play through, the controls were natural and simply to me, since I play a lot plat forming games similar to Sly Cooper. Just like the Jak and Daxter series, Ratchet and Clank series, I fondly enjoy playing as Sly Cooper. Sly Cooper is great game, but one-hit-kill can be somewhat annoying, but a challenge to keep the Lucky Charms.
Overall
Overall, Sly Cooper and Thievious Raccoonus is solid game with very interesting and developing characters. I kind of wish I play Sly Cooper when I was playing Jak and Daxter, and Ratchet and Clank back in the day. I always knew about the Sly Cooper but I never really play anyone of the games until now. I can honestly say that Sly Cooper is one the best plat forming heroes that can be found on the Play Station.
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