Legend of Zelda for the 6th consecutive year

It’s getting pretty repetitive though, and I am getting a bit bored of it. Playing a single chapter of each character, and then for all intents and purposes, forgetting that character in any kind of narrative just feels like waste of time. And after going through the map, recruiting 7 characters, my highest level character is level 21. So, even if I hadn’t recruited them, I would’ve to grind a lot to reach chapter 2.

That’s exactly why I ended up dropping Octopah - the stories being too disconnected didn’t look good to me, and the game felt way too grindy. It’s interesting that I also dropped it on a similar timeframe, I finished all initial chapters but barely started the second batch.

Finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice, part of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy!

Case 5 was interesting but flawed. It’s broken into two halves, starting with a a civil trial where Apollo and Phoenix are defending different sides - a novel idea but the writing of this section was just bad. Feels like everyone except Apollo has an “act stupid” debuff applied (in particular Phoenix) which hurt a lot my enjoyment.

The second half as much better, and gave us a nice conclusion to the arc in Khura’in. However, while the stakes were supposed to be higher, it didn’t feel as impactful to me as the third case. I think one of the biggest problems is that we didn’t have enough time to get attached to the new characters from this side - Nahyuta is underdeveloped and boring, likely the weakest of the “main” prosecutors in the entire series, Dhurke was awesome but got wayyyy too little screentime, same with Inga and Ga’ran. The only character I got really attached was Rayfa, she had a nice development arc over the game.

Finally, the special case was a nice throwback for fans of the original trilogy - an old-school case set in Japan America with Phoenix and Maya teaming up against Edgeworth, and even the return of Larry. The dynamic of that trio was as good as I remember, and the case was solid.

Overall a good game, and I hope we see more of the series. Maybe Capcom will give us a package of the two Investigation games? Maybe we could even hope for a new entry? I’d take either option happily.

Playing 1000xRESIST!

A lot of people saying good things about this game combined with my love for sci-fi convinced me to give it a shot.

It’s an adventure/“walking simulator” game with an interesting setting: Humanity was destroyed by a plague, leaving behind a single survivor. All the main characters are clones of her, and you play as “Watcher”, one of the clone sisters whose role is to relieve and preserve the memories of their “mother”.

Finished Chapter 1, and it left me with an excellent impression. Let’s how it goes from here.

I wanted to love Octopath Traveler. I loved the music, story, battle system and visuals.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get much further than you are right now. Twice. I tried it twice.

The reason I gave up 2 times was the grinding. It gets ridiculous after you get the 8 characters. It got bad enough that it really destroyed any fun I had with the game. It really sucks, because I like everything else about OT.

I bought Octopath Traveler in 2018 and haven’t beat it yet. In fact the only game I’ve “beaten” are the Zelda games and Skyrim.

I have started the final DLC of Sparks of Hope, the Rayman DLC. Now, I’ve not been particularly excited for this one since I’m not a Rayman-guy, but it’s disappointing he doesn’t get to meet the Mario characters at all. It’s just two of the Rabbids. Which, in a way, makes this the least cross-overy cross-over in the series. But on a plus-side, the battle rankings are back! It’s just a bit of ‘too little, too late’, considering you only have three characters, so it’s not like you can do much to ‘adapt’ to a map to improve your performance. You can adjust your sparks, but Rayman can’t use them, so even that part has limited customizability.

I’ve looked into the first game’s DLC again, and it’s about the same length as the two main DLCs of the sequel combined. And in a game like this, where you level up and customize your characters, I think one meaty DLC is better than two shorter ones. Let me actually invest time into the skill trees and grow my characters instead of rolling the credits as soon as I get something going. Sometimes, less is more.

In Arkham Knight, I finished off Red Hood in less than two hours. Unless a map required me to remain unseen, I’d just finish off the challenges and start shooting everyone else. It’s honestly crazy how easily you get away with this, but that’s not exactly why I’m doing these Predator challenges. The Red Hood Story had enemies with bullet-proof vests, but they didn’t use them at all for the maps. It’s a bit disappointing, they always remove enemy types that a character can’t deal with but don’t add the new ones that were made specifically for them!

Next up is the character I’ve saved for last: Harley Quinn. I just think this is going to be the hardest character to use because A, she’s the only character without a grapple, so there’s very little upward mobility (my primary way of escaping), and B, she has no silent takedowns. I believe her on-screen prompts even say ‘Loud Takedown’. She is going to drag me out of my comfort zone kicking and screaming and I am scared. At least her personalized version of Detective Mode is pretty fun. The scribbles on the walls, the giggling, what little remains of Harleen Quinzel trying to talk sense into herself.

In any case, it seems like I’ll be beating both of my games around the same time, and I believe I started them around the same time, too. That’s not how I usually do this and it’s weird that it’s happening again.

The new Paper Mario. I’ve played it many times growing up, but never finished it for one reason or another (ADHD). I’m further than I’ve even gotten and excited to beat it this time.

On an unrelated note, my switch battery desynced or something and the fix is to play it until the battery is dead and it stops you, then charge it for 5+ hours. I’ve done this three times now and it gets better each time. I think it is finally fixed now.