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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,
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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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2323 registered gamers and 3357 games. 7894 GameLogs with 13388 journal entries. 5125 games are currently being played.
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Ratchet and Clank (PS2) by Jeshie |
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most recent entry: Monday 21 March, 2016
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Ratchet And Clank (2002): Saturday, March 19th (Session 1) Monday, March 21st (Session 2)
Created by Insomniac Games for the Play Station 2.
>>Overview<<
Ratchet And Clank (2002) can be is a 3D platformer, third-person shooter, action-adventure game for the PS2. This game was the first entry into the Ratchet And Clank franchise and is a childhood favorite of mine. It plays as a single-player campaign game, where the protagonists, Ratchet and Clank, have to save the galaxy from the evil chairman Drek who is plotting to take parts of other planets and put them together to make a new home planet for his alien-race. Its a fun game with quirky humor, platforming puzzles, and some skill based combat that I can never find to be too repetitive or boring.
>>Formal Elements<<
The game is a single-player game versus the environment and enemy monsters/robots, but can very easily be a game where you take turns with a friend beating smaller levels within a planet.
As for objectives, the game has tons ranging from capture (defeating enemies), race (hoverboard mini-game), alignment (platforming puzzles), exploration (hidden levels on a planet/collectibles), and solution (puzzles and minigames).
Most of the game procedures are quite simple. Before you can play, you have to select a planet, so you can then explore it to complete tasks. Another is the player must traverse down certain paths on the planet to usually run into a cut-scene of some sort where you get a reward like a new planet or gun. Then whenever you want to leave the planet you just hop into your ship or go down another path you might not have explored. You also have control procedures like firing your guns, melee attacks with the wrench, and jumping. There are also probably some artificial intelligence procedures that tell the enemies how to behave.
The rules of basic platforming and shooting gameplay of Ratchet and Clank are also pretty simple. If you run out of health (nanotech) you'll die, can only go to planets you have unlocked, can't buy a gun if you don't have enough bolts, are some examples of rules within the game. There also several mini-games that have their own set of rules as well.
The three main resources in this game are bolts(money), ammo for guns, and the players health. A fourth resource is golden bolts, which are used to upgrade guns to their omega version and are treated as hidden collectibles. The mini-games within the game also have varying resources such as the racing mini-game having a boost resource.
The overall conflict is the fact that chairman Drek is willing to destroy several populations of entire planets within the galaxy and if Ratchet doesn't find a way to stop him he'll lose his home. Other sub-conflicts are more puzzle or planet specific, but there are some character conflicts, especially with Captain Quark not being who everyone thinks he is.
Obvious boundaries are just the edges of levels, the boundaries of platforms you can land on and not fall into a pit of death, and you can't actually fly to planets manually, but just pick one to automatically go to it.
>>Dramatic Elements<<
The challenge and ability balance within the game seems to be well done. If you ever get a little frustrated with an area you can easily take a break by going to a mini-game planet and then try again once you have regrouped. Nothing seems exceptionally impossible, but its not a cake-walk either. You have to pay attention to enemy patterns, conserve ammo in some cases, and bosses tend to take a couple tries, but not too many. The puzzles have never stumped me either, but they do require a little thought.
This game tends to attract the types of players who like to explore, collect, and a little bit of a joker type character with some of the goofy stuff the game has in it.
The premise of the game is that some man is destroying planets and Ratchet wants to find the well known super hero Captain Quark to stop him. As he travels from planet to planet he has to fight through chairman Drek's army of robots using his weapons and gain Captain Quark's assistance. Since its understandable that different planets would be unique it allows many environments and different puzzle situations to arise.
The game has specific characters with predefined personalities. Quark ends up being a huge coward with a big lying mouth, Ratchet kind of has this well somebody's got to do it, but I also get to do all this cool stuff attitude, and Clank tends to be very logical and covers all the advanced sci-fi technology this universe would have. Out of all the main characters, Ratchet is only playable one except for certain sequences where you get to play as Clank for a little bit. In both situations the characters are in the complete control of the player.
The game has an overarching story, where Ratchet just wants to get the help of someone he believes to be very powerful only to find out he is a wuss and has to save the galaxy himself. The planets have their own tiny sub-plots, so you kind of get a feel for what kind of people live their, but its not anything too deep or serious. Most of the planet storytelling is done through the environment.
>>Session 1<<
The game opens up with some simple cutscenes with Ratchet working on a ship hes putting together and he ends up seeing another ship crash on his planet, so he decides to check it out. Something is up with this ship though, as tons of killing robots are now suddenly here and Ratchet has to fight through them to reach the crashed ship. I immediately remember some of the controls and mechanics, which leads me to change my camera settings because I hate inverted controls. I begin hacking my way through these tiny robot chicken/raptor things with the wrench and start to get my first glimpse of the juicy resource known as bolts. As I traversed the level I caught myself constantly looking around to see if I was passing up crates or enemies to smash so I could get every single bolt possible. I also would hit props in the environment as I recall some being breakable and giving tons of bolts, but there didn't seem to be any on this level. Later in the level I run into the first ranged robot that shoots some weird lazer ray thing, but its super short ranged and the game reminds me that I have a bomb glove. I instantly use it to lob small bombs on top of them from out of their range and easily start clearing the level, until I eventually get to the crashed ship. Here another cutscene occurs and I meet my trusty companion for the rest of the game, Clank, who tells Ratchet about Chairman Drek's plans to destroy planets. They then head back to the ship and Clank is able to be the missing piece Ratchet didn't have to finish it. They then leave for the planet Novalis, which is where the coordinates of Chairman Drek's last transmission.
>>Session 2<<
I begin on planet Novalis and instanly notice a crate that says gadgetron floating above it(gadgetron is like the store in this game), and check whats available. I see a new gun named the pyrocitor, seems like a flamethrower, and realize I'm about 1000 bolts short of its 2.5k bolt price. I then notice I have two path options, an elevator platform that brings me down into a field, and a cave like path. I choose the elevator platform and find another chicken/raptor like robot and start smashing them. I'm trying to conserve ammo by using my wrench as I'm not too sure whats ahead. With the pyrocitor in my mind, I'm more bolt hungry than ever, and check every nook and cranny for crates or monsters to harvest for cold, hard bolts. As I travel further, I run into a new enemy that shoots bullets at a slow semi-automatic rate and seem to reload or re-position themselves after 3 shots. Once they start shooting their turn radius is also slow, so when they are alone I simply dodge and smash with the wrench, otherwise I take them out swiftly with my bomb glove. Now I'm at a split, there is a bridge to left and some stairs a little further and to my right. I end up choosing the stairs because I see at the bottom their are quite a few enemies to harvest and I haven't reached that total bolt count for that pyrocitor. After killing some more enemies and some simple platforming, I run into a big circular area where a ship comes down with several of the robots who shoot 3 times. I make quick work of them and get another cutscene that results in a reward for coordinates of the planet Kerwan who has a shop that specializes in electronic gadgets and weapons. Afterwards a small bridge forms that leads me very close to my ship and that last fight got me to a little 2500 bolts. I dash towards the gadgetron and by the pyrocitor. I quickly run into the cave real quick to test it out on some small chicken/raptor things and yep its a flamethrower, but at least it's got higher firepower than my wrench for close range combat. After that I end this session and taking a break before I decide to head to the new planet or maybe check out the other paths on this one.
>>Conclusion<<
Combat in the game is as I remember it, slightly clunky, but in a manner that doesn't bother me or hinder my experience. So far I haven't noticed a strafing mechanic, but that might be something they added in the second game on. The basic storytelling and animations make the characters look humorous with their exaggerated movements and silly voices. The overall attitude gives off a we're serious in a goofy way and makes it hard to get upset at the game. I also found it quite funny how easily hooked I was at seeking out bolts as soon as the game started and how eagerly I wanted to try out a new gun even though I knew what it was probably going to do. The game is intuitive and gives very quick and non-intrusive instructions, which makes it very easy to just start diving into it. Its a game I would recommend to anyone and their isn't a better time to get into Ratchet And Clank with the remake coming out later this year.
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