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Phantom Abyss (PC) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 19:14:27) |
I'd heard of the game's hook (or gimmick if you will) as, everyday it's a different 1st person platforming game/run, and if you die - that's it. Play a different run later.
I'm guessing stuff changed along the way, though the concept is still here - it's a reasonably challenging rogue-like 1st person platforming game. I've had fun, you have a whip to help you climb and each level has different modifiers (the whip has an ability) and you can pick up boons in your run (if you have enough coins to afford them) and hopefully make it to the end. BUT, you see a bunch of ghosts for everyone else who played this level - if someone died, you can collect their spirit or something for a small heal! During each run you collect keys you can use to buy permanent upgrades, and so you go up the progression ladder of many roguelites...
Someone described this as first person temple run, which is close enough? I mean, the levels themselves are a lot more interesting than the "mere" reaction times that temple run goes for, here you can side-step/etc. stuff - and there are different paths, and in all you can be a bit creative for how you approach stuff...I've had fun so far - unlocked all the green levels and I've started on the blue ones!
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Cuphead (Switch) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:37:03) |
I only get to play this when my son comes around - and we play together and I realized, yeah - I need to either start practicing seriously or just give up. And, I enjoy playing it co-op, so there's not much sense in practicing, so I decided to give up.
We did make it to the 2nd island(?), and played some of the levels there - but I was clearly starting to see a steeper path to success. As in, it too us (mostly my fault) more and more tries to make less progress. He's already played it, beat it too? So, not much point for him really.
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Sonic Rush (DS) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:34:08) |
I started playing this from the saved game - with new(?) character Blaze on "area 2" (I don't remember the exact name). And, I just could not beat the level - it was set in the casino world, and everything was moving super fast and on "automatic" - so, you just press move and the character zips along, bounces, etc.
It's actually quite boring! Because you just do this, at some point you hit an enemy (very few enemies in the game!), lose your rings, and then carry on. But, I'd lose because I'd fall into a bottomless pit, lose three lives and then out.
I'd say it wasn't so much frustrating as it was a disappointment. Yes, the point of Sonic is that it's "fast" - that's it's thing. But I find that there's little interaction to the game for most of the levels - you just "go along with the direction". It's neat when sometimes you get bounced around automatically, but for the most part I like to control the character.
So, I deleted the save file and started a new one, this time with Sonic in the equivalent of green hill zone. This level has two areas and then a boss. So, it's like 3 levels make up a level.
And, the experience was pretty similar - run on automatic for a while, lose rings suddenly or die, repeat with a bit more caution...etc. I did make it all the way to the boss fight - which I almost beat one too many times, and I just realized - ok, this is dumb - at least the boss fights have more gameplay ( you dodge, make an attack when the weak spot is open, etc.) - but it's still a pretty boring/uninteresting platforming experience.
So, off to the shelf it goes!
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Secret Files: Tunguska (DS) by jp (Apr 4th, 2025 at 19:16:25) |
I think there's a weird moment in time when everyone thought that point-and-click style adventure games were dead, but they were not. And, I think this game is an example of a game that was under the radar of "mainstream" games press at the time? Or at least under the radar of the average consumer of videogames...
This particular game is also a strange little time capsule - it's a port of what I think was a PC game...also at a time when people where porting all kinds of things to the DS. And, it works! Well, from a UI perspective at least. And it works pretty well. At least compared to another adventure game I played recently on the DS whose name I'm blanking on as I write this. I bounced on that one because it had some character/3D interactions that were awkward and unintuitive. Here, they were much smarter about it (I'm assuming they made UI "concessions" because it's on the DS). So, while you have a 3D character that navigates a static space - you don't actually have to move the character around directly in order to interact with objects/places in each scene. Press one button and all the interactive spots highlight, and you can just tap on them directly. I LOVE this solution - especially because I was never a fun of the "hunt for the pixel" approach that many games had (on PC) - and I'm super glad it didn't come across into this DS version (for all I know, the "here's all the highlights" was also possible on PC).
But, the UI triumph aside, I still kind of bounced off this. I got stuck on a puzzle (how typical!) - and what I had to do was leave a location to visit another location and then continued...this seemed really "unfair" to me - as in, unintuitive - mostly because I had assumed I could not leave the locatio in the first place. It wasn't entirely unintuitive - but it was the sort of puzzle where I was sure I should be able to (in this case) get the key out of the aquarium - but it turns out that no, I had to leave the place, do some other stuff, and then come back. At this point I was well into the tried-and-true "try all the things with all the things", except that I did not know I could leave the location I was at. Sigh.
So, from glancing at my list of DS games I still need to play...well, I wasn't THAT interested in the story so far and the puzzles didn't feel particularly interesting either..so, it was an easy game to put on the shelf.
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Shogun Showdown (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 4th, 2025 at 18:33:00) |
Clever little tactics roguelite. It reminds me of Into the Breach and other tactics games where you are given clear information about what enemies will do each turn. It's also reminiscent of Into the Breach because of the small play space. Basically, the game takes place on a 2d plane that is divided into like 8 or 9 spaces. Any given character occupies 1 space and can move left or right. You build a "deck" of "tiles" that include attacks and other special abilities, many of which involve movement (e.g., a forward dash that moves to the nearest frontal enemy and deals 1 damage). Your goal is to build up your tiles and progress stage by stage until you kill the Shogun.
During each run, you can purchase and upgrade tiles, mostly increasing their damage or decreasing their cooldowns, purchase passive abilities, use items, and other standard roguelite stuff--make yourself stronger by strategically handling whatever random things you get.
Most every action you do takes a turn, and all characters take turns at the same time. So, you move right (1 turn) and all the enemies do a thing (one might move left toward you, one might queue up an attack). Then you queue up an attack, and those two enemies might queue up an attack and attack, respectively. Actually, it also reminds me of Crypt of the Necrodancer, which works like this, where all characters act simultaneously. In that game, when you move, everything else moves. Shogun Showdown is like that. When you do something, the enemies do something.
I beat the Shogun for the first time this evening, which was maybe my fifth run or so. I had what felt like extremely overpowered weapons, a sword that I'd leveled up to deal 5 damage with only a 2-turn cooldown. I also had a bow-and-arrow with 4 damage and a 3-turn cooldown. The kicker though was a curse that doubled the next damage on an enemy. So, I'd just queue the curse, the sword, and the arrow. That took literally half the Shogun's health bar. Did it again, dead and into phase 2. No problem. Did it two more times. Dead. Easy. When you beat the Shogun, you unlock "day 2", which is the next difficulty level. You can also unlock additional characters with different skills, and you can keep unlocking new tiles and stuff. I consider it beat after taking out the Shogun once. It's a fun game, really tight, and makes you think ahead. It doesn't do much that you haven't seen before though.
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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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2285 registered gamers and 3255 games. 7787 GameLogs with 13264 journal entries. 5110 games are currently being played.
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most recent entry: Sunday 27 January, 2008
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Well, it is day #2 of my Paper Mario adventure. I only played roughly for 45 minutes this time because I lost my patience with the game. Actually, I got stuck not knowing what to do next. :(
Today's adventure dealt with searching for the first crystal star to unlock the Thousand Year Door. And no, I was never able to find it...but I did have some excitement on my journey. Allow me to elaborate on my quest. I set out from Rogueport in an attempt to find Petalburg, a nearby village where the first crystal star is supposedly hidden nearby. To find the city, I had to battle a giant cute squid! The whole ordeal was so traumatic. This poor giant squid was floating merrily near a dock with a tentacle sticking out of the water and I didn't know what it was...I thought it might be a giant button or levitating pad or something, so I hit it like crazy with my hammer. This unfortunately forced me into a turn-based RPG battle with the squid. He tried to put me in "a world of hurt" (his words, not mine) for my accidental attack on him...but I successfully pummeled that squid until he LITERALLY cried (no joking)! It was so sad that I almost turned the game off. Anyway, my squid battle unlocked the passage to Petalburg, so it was a necessary evil. Other interesting things that happened today...I got chewed on a few times by random piranhas (I fell into water twice - big mistake). I battled what are called "fuzzies"...and they suctioned to my head as their battle tactic, sucking my brain (depleted HPs). I discovered huge flying dragons! I think I have to battle one named Hooktail later, but today I just saw him fly over me. He enjoys eating the people of Petalburg, or so I've heard. Um...this is strange...I received an email today (from Dr. Frankley, a professor of Goombrella's). Apparently anyone you meet can email you. Since when in any game has Mario ever been capable of receiving emails??? What's more...the emails can have normal-type email attachments, like pictures. It's strange; I was just randomly walking through town, when I was notified by the game that I had received an email. Mario doesn't even have a computer! Maybe he has a miniature cell phone device or something. Who knows? It was strange. Also, I discovered a new fighting tactic...SHEEP. And not just one sheep...but a monster heard of them. Apparently, when you have the right token in your inventory (a sheep token), you can command a heard of sheep to rush at your enemy. The effect is that the enemies are put to sleep (the traditional counting sheep phenomenon) for a certain amount of time, which allows you to attack and kill them (or possibly run from them), without allowing them their retaliatory attack on you. Furthermore, as I journeyed, I was searching for a stone key...the place that you find the key had a large stone statue boss that you had to fight. I was intimidated, but decided to battle him. Strangely, the battle turned into a game show (called the 65th Superfun Quick Quiz), where the statue guy was the host, with his microphone and brightly colored duds. The room's walls fell off (like paper) and revealed walls of brightly colored lights. I was reminded of Vegas. This was definitely an unexpected turn of events - but was fun.
I also discovered several reminiscent elements that draw upon previous Mario games. For example, I noticed that when Mario jumps (not in battle mode), he makes the "woo" sound that I believe came from Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64). Additionally, I saw coin blocks (the type that you jump up and hit to receive coins)...those are common in all Mario games, as are mushrooms. In this game, however, a mushroom replenishes 5HP, which is effectively the same as making Mario bigger. I saw switch blocks today, which show up in Super Mario World (SNES)...although the switch block was used to build a bridge, which is slightly different. (When the bridge was being built, the whole screen took on a storybook type of appearance and pages flipped, as in traditional animation, to gradually build the bridge...it was neat.) You can also gain POW blocks, as in Super Mario 2 (NES), and these you can use in battle mode to take out all of your opponents. Warping pipes, which are typical of every single Mario game, are again present here and a sound clip similar to the original Mario game (NES) accompanies these pipe journeys. I wonder if Yoshi is going to show up! That would be SOOOOO exciting!
I keep noticing more and more details on how the creators of this game have tried to deal with the 2D/3D meshing. For example, when you walk into a house, the house collapses radially outward, with the walls being effectively paper, so that you can see the inside. I don't really know why they picked this method, but it looks good on screen. Also, the game has inns that Mario and Goombrella can stay in to replenish their HPs and when you see them get into bed, they slip in without disturbing the sheets at all because they're flat (a useful skill...I would like to not have to make my bed every morning). Additionally, it is interesting to watch Mario and Goombrella go down pipes; they swirl around in a circle (like folding a paper around to have both ends touch), as if being sucked into a whirlpool. The graphics never fail to amuse me!
As for gameplay, this is where I feel the game really falls short of my expectations. I have gotten used to the turn-based battles...but I feel that there are FAR too many battles. The villains in this game (goombas, turtles, fuzzies, etc.) are so fast that you basically cannot avoid a single battle! If you can, you're lucky. Also, if you get into a battle and try to run from the villains, they chase you at the same very fast pace, AND they rob you of money as you're running from them! It was very frustrating to be on a mission and get stopped once or twice per screen because the villains are virtually unavoidable. I ended the game today, feeling like I hadn't accomplished much, other than beating up some bad guys. I did, however, increase my HPs by a level and my BPs (badge points) by a level, so yay for me. The dialog has decreased a bit, since I am now actually playing the game, instead of trying to figure out the storyline - this is an improvement over my previous gaming experience. One new thing that I find to be frustrating, however, is Mario's inventory/log screen. When you push Select/Start on the controller, the screen is filled up by a five tab window that controls Mario's inventory, stats (HP, BP, SP, FP, etc.), emails, Goombrella's stats and more that I haven't learned. I've been trying to learn all of the options available with this menu, but there are just too many buttons and options. I have had much difficulty trying to figure out how to do very simple things. And as I postulated in my previous log, I do, in fact, have trouble remembering what all of the different points systems are for and how they are useful during battle. This is hugely frustrating because I was paying attention! I think all of these details have overloaded what I can retain at this point...and there's no where (within the game) to go to look up what specific things do! So, I may not be developing my tactics and abilities at an appropriate rate. :(
Overall, the game is not incredibly complex - it's appropriately complex for individuals expecting a similar complexity to the other Mario games. I think the creators made a big mistake by doing the turn-based battling, though. This is a real turn-off to me because I enjoy actively battling villains. This is the #1 thing I would do differently. Second on my list is to simplify the point system, if one is even needed. The game makers were enormously creative in different areas - such as the different methods of battling, the unexpected twists, cool graphics, and interesting characters. But I understand why this game is not more popular. The essence of all previous Mario games (active battling, uncomplicated reward systems) is not captured in this game. Unfortunately, I am probably not going to be able to play this game to completion.
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