I don’t mind the higher difficulties, it’s the time wasting that drives me mad.

Really hard bosses? Sure, just let me respawn immediately next to it instead of making me go through a minute of walking before every retry.

Tough platforming challenges? Do it like Well Dweller and have a health item respawn at the beginning of the challenge so you can keep practicing as much as necessary.

Finished Afterimage!

I had good time with it, but it’s a massively flawed game.

The Good: Colossal maps, with a lots and lots to stuff to find - if you’re in the mood to chill and explore a huge world (while probably getting lost) you’re going to love it. Combat is solid with a lof of diferent weapons. Map is very open with plenty of different paths.

The Bad: Story is borderline incomprehensible, likely due to a bad translation. There’s some really cryptic stuff and you’ll almost certainly need a guide if you’re going for the true ending. Map and fast travel are serviceable, but not as good as they needed to be for the size of the game. Switch 1 performance is “playable” at best.

Playing MIO: Memories in Orbit!

This is a challenging game. You die easily, and healing is limited to a few specific locations in the map. Maps are full of “gotcha” moments with enemies dropping out of nowhere and not-very-obvious “touch this and you lose life damage” spots. Dying sends you back to one of the (very few) save points, even for bosses.

The end result is that you keep replaying the same location a lot, which is making this game really frustrating to play.

Which is a shame, because the rest of the game is really good. Cool powerups, decent combat, interesting customization options, great atmosphere.

That sounds correct, left votes are very centered around Lula.

Which is also another major problem for the left in the future - he’s 80 and there’s absolutely no good successor to inherit those votes (partially his own fault too, he and his party never liked to share).

A very small fine, less than a dollar (R$3.51).

Sorry to hear about your PC, specially with how the prices are these days a new SSD is going to cost an arm and a leg.

After a lot of debugging I think it’s not a disk issue but rather a power management problem. Made some configuration changes and so far it looks stable… let’s keep monitoring.

Afterimage is on my wishlist, it looks good, hopefully the good outweighs the bad. Looking forward to your final review of the game.

Most likely the final review will be positive.

Crazy week. Spent two whole days at a company event, got home absolutely wrecked yesterday, thinking… “OK, let’s take it easy, relax, avoid stress next few days”… only get a bunch of hard crashes in my personal PC this morning, suspecting a dying SSD. :/

Playing Afterimage!

Another metroidvania. It’s definitely a flawed game, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Might even end up rating it as a “flawed gem”.

The maps in this game are absolutely massive, the biggest I’ve seen in this genre. They are this game’s biggest strength, there’s so, so, so much to explore. If your goal when playing a metroidvania is to just chill and run around opening areas, finding paths and opening treasure chests you’ll have a blast.

At the same time, those huge maps conflict with other design choices - the game has a “soulsvania” system where you have to collect your soul or lose XP every time you die, which would be a massive PITA if not for the game being absurdly easy. The lack of guidance (“just keep going east”) makes it easy to get lost and keep exploring areas at random, which hurt the sense of progression and pacing, and the fast-travel system which would be “OK” in other games feels inadequate for this scale.

detective thriller visual novel

OK, you got my attention. It’s from IDEA FACTORY though, which is really inconsistent in quality.

Sheep is ~4h, the following games are longer.

Kyle’s recent games are around ~10h, I bought it launch day and played pretty much every night after that. Ended up finishing it thursday right before going to sleep.

I usually don’t talk about my Super Nintendo journey here, but I know at least one person here might be interested to hear that I’ve been playing Super Robot Wars 4 lately, since the fan translation is finally complete after many years.

Wait, AGTP finally finished that translation? God bless Gideon Zhi, now I just need to figure out what’s the best way to play this.

Finished Well Dweller!

Haven’t been in a good mood for gaming but could not pass a new Kyle Thompson release. It’s another short, cute, very polished and clever metroidvania - it’s incredible it was almost entirely done by a single person.

I loved the unique moveset in this game where instead of the usual double-jump the game lets you throw and “stick” your weapon in walls and use it like a springboard, with quite a few interesting plataforming puzzles using this mechanic. Controls are perfect, art and music are fantastic, and the game has excellent pacing. Performance-wise there’s some frame drops on the Switch 1 but they are rare and don’t interfere with gameplay.

Another great thing is how it’s one of those games that respect your time. Equipment to see secret passages? One of the first you’ll find in the game. Fast travel? Unlocks early on and lets you move to any save you’ve found. Stuck or can’t find that one missing item? You can buy hints in your home base. It’s all optional so if you prefer a more old-school experience you can just skip these features, but I love that they are available.

I noticed another VN Winds of Change going on sale, and it was rated pretty well too. Have you played that?

No, had not heard of that one before. Looking at VNDB it has only 21 votes, so it’s probably very niche.

Busy week, zero gaming time since monday, but at least I got some progress during the weekend.

Playing Perennial Dusk: Kinsenka!

Finished the first chapter, which focused on the “setup” of the main themes and conflicts of the story. The following chapter appears to be a more slice-of-life section to introduce the remaining members of the cast.

So, do I need to lookup the guide before starting the game, or should do a blind run first and then use the guide to go for true ending?

I’d suggest a blind run first.

I am guessing I won’t have to replay the whole game or anything?

Depending on your choices may need start from the beginning… but you can have the game automatically fast forward through dialogue you’ve already read on previous playthroughs ,so getting to the true ending will be quite fast.

Current plan is to give Stiens;Gate another try, since I already own it on PS3.

It’s a great game, but I’ll give you a quick warning: You will need a guide to get to the final/true ending.

Most of the endings are fairly obvious decisions at the end of a chapter, but the final/true ending is hidden behind a bunch of message responses during the game with nothing that clearly signals “you’re on the right path”.

It’s absolutely worth it though. One of the most satisfying endings I’ve seen.

On Switch side have Raging Loop on wishlist, plan to get it on next sale.

This one should be a much simpler to complete, there’s a handy in-game flowcharts helps you explore and go back and forth to try different choices very easily.

Atri is the best one for those not very familiar with VNs. Not too long, great production, very interesting setting and cast. There’s a Switch version too, but for some bizarre reason it’s only available in the Japanese eShop even though it has english language support.

But my personal favorite is the original Grisaia Trilogy, specially the first game. Incredibly fun cast, and a very unusual story structure - the first 2/3 of the game is a “common” route with hilarious slice-of-life comedy, followed by your choice of a character-specific storyline - all of which get incredibly dark.

It’s a monster of a VN though. I’m a fast reader and the first game alone took me 50h, and this package has the three main games plus a ton of side-content. Also, the original release of this game was an eroge, and while the explicit scenes were removed in modern releases there’s still plenty of sexual content in dialogues which may or may not be OK with you.

Playing Super Robot Wars Y Anniversary Expansion Pack!

Not a lot of progress, just cleared a couple more stages. Still plenty to go before I finish this expansion.

Playing Perennial Dusk: Kinsenka!

I bought this one blind because it was from Frontwing game, and I’ve been having good experiences with their VNs (plus they always release multi-language physical versions).

First impressions are “that’s a bold choice for a protagonist”, and “now I know why this has a CEROZ age rating” (highest one in Japan). Definitely got my attention, will try to focus on it this weekend.

Playing Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic - the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Deluxe Edition!

This is a remake of an older Touhou bullet hell game, and I believe it’s the first of these to be released for modern consoles. Only played a couple runs but definitely liking what I see - it’s an older, simpler game, but the bullet patterns are great.

FF: Resonance looks great. Same with Another Eden Begins. Let us know how you like the demos

Double posting, but since you asked about it: I finished both demos, both fairly long at ~4h each.

FF Resonance: Extremely impressed with the demo. They’re doing some really cool stuff with the HD-2D engine, the opening scenes are a good example. I can’t find good words to describe it, but the mix of more realistic images with pixel art looks very unique. Gameplay is great, with a lot of customization options, and quite balanced in a way that is challenging without being too overwhelming. It’s a Day 1 purchase for me now.

Another Eden: Writing and gameplay is very basic, it’s ridiculously easy, and I wasn’t into the toy-like (mobile-like?) visuals for the characters at first… but the game grew up on me as I played, and I’m very curious where the plot will go. Will probably get it if I can find a good price (MSRP being $40 helps).

As for starting from 3rd EO game, I’ll probably find it difficult to do. Have this weird need to start from the earliest game, at least when it’s playable on current systems.

EO1 is still good, just much simpler/basic.

And while we are on the topic, I got Vaporum on last sale, it has been on my wishlist for quite a while, have you played that?

No, I had not, and it looks great! Added to my wishlist.

I have never played Etrian Odyssey, the collection is on my wishlist though, have heard a lot about them.

EO is the GOAT among DRPGs. Though I’d recommend picking up only EO3 instead of the whole bundle if you’re new to the genre, the first two games are good but considerably more dated, so I’d only recommend them for more hardcore fans.

Map drawing in the HD versions is awkward compared to the touchscreen in the DS (though I hear it works well in handheld mode if you get a stylus), but it still has some of the best dungeons, party building and customization in the genre. And insane Yuzo Koshiro OSTs.

Really wish we get a 4/5/Nexus pack sometime in the future, EO3 is amazing but I think EO5 is still the best one.