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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,
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)
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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: Friday 1 July, 2016
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Dark Souls is sooooo frustrating! The most frustrating thing is how much I want to enjoy it. I mean, this is an RPG that is beloved by critics and fans alike. It’s a hugely popular series. It’s known for being beautifully…dark. The world is bleak. The story is bleak. The characters are bleak. It’s known for having some cool twists on standard RPG mechanics, such as collecting “souls” (experience) from slain enemies, except that you drop them when you die (like all your hard-earned gear in EverQuest). It’s okay though! You can return to the blood-stained spot where you died and collect your souls. Well…unless you die on the way there. Which you will. Frequently. You can only collect souls from your most recent death.
The other mechanic I found so neat allows for an odd type of player-player interaction. You can purchase an item that allows you to leave messages for other players. The idea, narratively, is that there are parallel universes. You can examine blood stains and see replays of a phantom other player dying. Sometimes player-phantoms will flit in and out of your world. (And later on players can actually invade one another’s worlds and help or kill one another). But with the message item, you can choose a spot on the ground and select from a wide variety of word pairs to try and communicate to others (“Danger ahead!” was a very useful one). These messages will appear on the ground in other people’s games, and you can upvote and downvote them too. I remember I was stuck on a bridge blocked by a giant dragon. I couldn’t figure out how to get by it without getting burned alive. So I read the messages. “Ranged fight.” “Try arrows.” “Here” (referring to a spot where, when I stood there, I could see the dragon’s tail hanging, looking like it needed an arrow through it). Sure enough, that’s the trick. Thanks strangers! Other times, players are not so helpful. It is common to approach a ledge and read something like “Jump here.” I jumped to my death several times, as instructed. One time I jumped and it was a shortcut. This was confusing, as it wasn’t always obvious whether or not I could trust the messages!
So, yes, Dark Souls has some really cool aspects. But what’s the other thing Dark Souls is known for? That’s right. Being insanely difficult. While I enjoy difficult games, I couldn’t get over the difficulty level of this one. It feels unfair sometimes. Sometimes that feeling lasts until you have an “a-ha!” moment, but usually the only way to combat the difficulty is to slog your way through, sloooowly, caaaarefully. I finally quit the game because I lost 7000 souls (that’s like 10 levels worth where I was at!). You can’t be cautious enough. You will lose your souls. You will curse aloud. If you are prone to throwing controllers, you will be purchasing replacements. I did a lot to help myself. I looked at tips and guides. I asked friends. I posted on message boards.
After much advice (and much sympathy), I decided to grind for some gear and levels and miracles (spells). That was realllly boring! Then I went back to the boss I was stuck on, the Taurus Demon, and figured out I could lure him to a tower and jump off the tower to impale him, and that’s how I killed him. Next, that big dragon was in my way. Before I could successfully get past him, I got poisoned by a rat and died and dropped over 7000 souls (everything from the Taurus Demon and from killing a ton of skeletons around the dragon bridge trying to figure my way forward). No problem, I'll just go get the souls. Except there's this skeleton with a shield and spear that will not leave a narrow ledge that I have to pass, no matter what I do to lure him out of my way. So I finally go try and just kill him because I'd knocked him off a couple times before (every time you die and every time you rest at a bonfire, all enemies respawn…), but lo and behold I accidentally did this irritating move with my weapon where my character, after blocking, attacks and somersaults backward. Well, I somersaulted off the ledge and was out 7000 souls. That was about 2 hours after the Taurus Demon.
After much soul-searching (ha…), I’m taking the perspective that I have many other games to play, and if I’m not having fun with this after 6 or 7 hours, I should put it to rest. On the bright side, my Steam wishlist is two games shorter (Dark Souls 2 & 3)!
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