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Great God Grove (PC) by dkirschner (Jan 12th, 2026 at 16:10:32) |
Finished this over the weekend. It's a cute, charming little narrative game with a clever gimmick that doesn't get overused or used to its full potential. In Great God Grove, you play as a character who needs to solve the problems of various gods and denizens in the titular great god grove. You see, a rift has opened in the sky, and it requires all the gods to work together to close it. But they are all angry and disharmonious because the newest god has gone and manipulated them all, turning them against one another and making them cause problems.
So, you get this megaphone that can suck up dialogue, and then you can shoot the dialogue at characters, causing reactions if it makes sense. For example, one character might be telling you all the great things about his girlfriend. You suck up his words, find the girlfriend, who tells you that she wishes her boyfriend would tell her how he feels about her. Then you shoot his words at her ("I love her so much, she's so great"), and she goes "Aww," and they can be emotionally vulnerable with each other (or whatever).
It's a clever little word game, but in practice it ends up being easy and straightforward. There are only so many sentences that can be sucked up, you can only hold five at a time anyway, and there are only so many situations in which it makes sense to use them. I did look up solutions in a walkthrough a few times really early on, but once I got the hang of the game and its logic, I never used one again. It's about identifying what dialogue would make sense being spoken to other characters, finding that dialogue, and then using your megaphone to blast it to the other characters. Levels are small enough that this is not hard.
That's basically it. It's really simple. There are some "optional" interactions, as you can play around and see what sentences will have what effects on what characters, but you'll usually have solutions figured out quickly. It's got charm and it's kind of funny, but I'd say has more of a silly vibe that often makes it cross over into childish territory. As the end approaches though, it begins sharing poignant lessons regarding its themes, and I appreciated it a bit more. One other thing to mention is its treatment of gender, which is really diverse. That stood out to me: masculine women together with feminine men, pronouns that don't match gender performance, gay couples, humans and gods crushing on each other, characters who you totally misgender because they look ambiguous. It was a little confusing at first, but once I realized that the game was playing with gender constructs, I liked that aspect.
Wouldn't really recommend unless you want a one-trick pony silly narrative game. I wouldn't have missed it had I not played, but it was good for a few evenings worth of entertainment.
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1000xRESIST (PC) by dkirschner (Jan 4th, 2026 at 10:23:28) |
Great sci-fi story that touches on real-world topics like protest, the experiences of immigrant families, and intergenerational trauma. It's really creative and artistic, with excellent writing (though the voice acting leaves something to be desired). You play (first) as the new "Watcher" (people are assigned functions: Watcher, Healer, Knower, etc.). Watcher observes things and enters into "communion" with other people, where they share their memories with Watcher. This helps Watcher understand them. As a new Watcher, you don't know a whole lot, so by communing with others, you learn about the history of this odd society, how it came to be, its religious belief, its hierarchy, and the dangers it faces. Too much to attempt to summarize here, and that would ruin the joy of discovering how this society operates.
But, you aren't just communing with others to learn. You are communing with others because people have secrets, notably the "Allmother" (a god-like figure revered in society). The Allmother may not be exactly how she is portrayed, and you end up trying to get to the bottom of who she is and the implications of that for everyone else. Turns out she has a history...A major event occurs halfway through the game that moves the story forward in time and changes who you play as, and makes you question what you had done so far and your goals going forward. Very cool.
That's basically the game! It's purely narrative in 3d environments, so you'll run around talking to people. Goals are clear and direct you from task to task. The story moves along at a good pace. The one thing I didn't like is that navigating "The Orchard" (the main area wherein the game takes place) is difficult. You get a kind of radar showing where other characters are, and you get a map, but they aren't terribly effective, particularly for helping you navigate the weaving hallways and ramps. There is a particular spot, a center of a garden, that I always had trouble finding. I could see the icon on the radar of whatever character I was meeting there, and I could often see them through trees, but it would take me a while to find the correct path!
In sum, I really enjoyed the story here and definitely recommend if you want a creatively presented, unique, and complex narrative. The map really isn't that big a deal, the voice acting is fine, and it can be a bit slow, but the story was so engaging and thought-provoking that I even stayed up one night till 2am playing. I usually start falling asleep around 11, so that's high praise!
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Diablo IV (PS4) by jp (Jan 3rd, 2026 at 10:57:41) |
I spent almost the entirety of Jan 1 playing this game co-op with my son. It's been a long time since I've played a game for that long in a single stretch! It was fun and I've really been enjoying it. That first day we almost finished Act III, which was kind of shocking because, for a hot minute, I thought that was the end of the game...it turns out there are something like 6 acts, and at the moment we've just finished act 5. So, getting there?
We're playing on the hardest difficulty allowed, and it's been surprisingly easy. I'm not sure exactly why except that maybe we're over-levelled? The only reason this may be is because, when we run around the overworld map and we always do "public events" when we see them, and these drop nice loot. On the other hand, we've been playing super fast and wild - just making a beeline for the campaign goal, ignoring all sidequests, monsters on the way, etc. We barrel through everything when on horseback - no looking back. So, from that angle we should be under-levelled. It's not like we never die, it just happens rarely and often surprisingly, and mostly from inattention rather than actual challenge.
I've been playing a sorceror - using only fire-based attacks, but I really like the free re-speccing and want to try something new out. My son's playing a necromancer, and it's only annoying because the screen is full of enemies all the time so it's like walking around with a posse.
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Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (PS4) by jp (Jan 3rd, 2026 at 10:50:33) |
So, it's time to head over to another kingdom to see if they're interested in joining!
I've gotten to a point where I'm slightly underleveled, but I don't want to grind. And while the combat is more challenging (and thus interesting)...I've realized that I should be doing a bunch of sidequests and such...and, it's ok?
The fast travel system is great, and it's unlocked really early in the game - and I love wandering around the environments - the overworld map just looks pretty and interesting and I get nice warm StudioGhibli+DragonQuest vibes... but I'm also looking at a stack of other unplayed games, and...at 20 hours in I feel like I've given this one a fair shake? (as in, I've gotten my entertainment value's worth for sure). But also, I'm curious about how the story will continue...and also, since the whole kindgom building kicked in, I've enjoyed that too and I wonder if there are some other surprises down the road?
Sigh. I haven't made a decision yet, but we'll see.
Oh, another thing that's kind of interesting - for me at least. There's a million different resources to collect and pick up, and it makes the game feel really rich...but, you don't have to really engage with it deeply (you probably could for some extra benefit) - but I kind of like that you can (automatically, through the kingdom) accrue all these items and then suddenly some are helpful - like when doing the bonus-quests(?) as soon as you pick up the quest. (there's a guy who appears in the cities and has quests - and many of them allow you to recruit people for the kingdom, so that's where it's helpful).
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Ninja Gaiden 4 (PC) by dkirschner (Jan 2nd, 2026 at 14:49:02) |
Never played a Ninja Gaiden game before (maybe did when I was a kid), but I knew this was developed by Platinum Games, so I figured it would feel like Bayonetta and their other fast action games that I've played. Indeed, Ninja Gaiden 4 feels like a mix between Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. I don't know what previous Ninja Gaiden games are like!
In this one, you play as a guy whose name I already forgot even though I beat it 2 hours ago. None of the characters have much personality. Anyway, you're a badass ninja and you have to save Tokyo by reviving and then killing a giant dragon. You do this by following a linear path to break four seals, killing the guardian of each seal, and then killing said dragon. Story and missions are extremely straightforward. Oh yeah, and when you're almost at the end of the game, you take control of a different character in the past and retrace the main character's steps backwards. You go through an abbreviated version of every area again and have to kill all the bosses again. Yay, backtracking...
What you will play this for is the combat, which is very fast and brutal. I haven't played anything this gory in a long time. The learning curve is steep. You can button mash your way through like the first hour, and then you will start getting your ass kicked. Instead of learning the deep combat system, which ends up with four weapons, two stances, various special abilities, a shuriken, and like 50 moves (including what you can do in the air and jumping up and down from things in the environment), I set the game to easy mode after a couple hours and button mashed my way through. My rationale? I am on a Game Pass timer and still have to go back to Hollow Knight: Silksong, and maybe Blue Prince. I am least interested in Ninja Gaiden and would prefer to spend my time attempting to beat Silksong.
Button-mashing your way through the game on easy ("hero") mode is still satisfying. The game mostly plays for you, auto-blocking all enemy attacks, but that let me pay attention to the environments and the enemies. Ninja Gaiden 4 is a visual treat! Somehow my computer ran it just fine on my TV. The environments are detailed, especially the neon-lit underground Tokyo part. Enemy animations are meticulously done, and bosses are huge, fast, and scary. There is also souls-like difficulty here on the bosses. They all have two phases, lots of different attacks, and are just plain cool. Granted, I was playing on easy, so I never lost enough to get frustrated at them!
And that's Ninja Gaiden 4. Played on easy, ended up just trying to speed my way through, it was pretty to look at with some good metal soundtrack, but it felt pretty much like 10 other games I've played before. I wouldn't bother playing it unless you really love these types of combo-combat action games.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 3rd, 2026 at 02:47:29.
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Brutal Legend (PS3) by jp |
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most recent entry: Friday 19 February, 2016
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The whole experience kind of fell apart for me when I got a point where I lost sense of what I was supposed to do and how to get it done. I just wasn't able to understand the feedback I was getting once I reached the point where I was sending people off to battle and all that. Sigh.
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