Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7958I started playing this back in October - maybe earlier? - and it was really confusing for me. Mostly I kept making mistakes I blame on the interface. For example, I'd select a character, move it, and then try to attack only to realize that I wasn't adjacent to the enemy like I thought. So, I'd miss a turn, my characters would die - but, I moved on. In the sense that I know this game is supposed to be sad, there's attrition, you make do an move on. But overall combat was really fiddly for me - I'd bungle selecting characters, and I wasn't really understanding the system.. does facing matter? are there attacks of opportunity if you move away, etc. These aren't dealbreakers for me, I was happy to try to learn and figure things out, and since you can't really save, it just continues - I though I'd just see how far I could get. Especially since it seems really brutal! I think the upgrade points are basically how you heal? Only two points at a time - so, it really is attritional. Or maybe I'm really misunderstanding the progression system. I did think it was interesting to follow the different stories - I have a hard time following the names and whatnot, but just seeing there were two groups, different character abilities, and such seems interesting. Then other stuff got in the way and I wasn't able to continue playing for a few weeks. I just came back to it, and wow - still the same UI stuff and ugh. I just don't feel like it's worth it to continue playing (a drawer full of other PS4 games doesn't help). I wonder if the console version is just worse than sitting at a desk on a PC? As in, would I make as many mistakes if I was on mouse and keyboard with the screen much closer to my face?Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:27:00 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7958&iddiary=13463https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7955There's quite a bit to do, but most of it has started to feel a bit shallow. The dungeon exploring was perhaps my favorite, there's lots of exploring to do which was fun, and it isn't that hard, and the companion helper was also a neat idea (to be honest though, I kept forgetting to "activate") - but overall I'm looking at the stack of DS games I still want to play (it's been getting quite a bit smaller, which is good -since the 3DS pile now looms) that I've decided to shelve this one.Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:20:24 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7955&iddiary=13462https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7956The game's premise is rather silly - you're a delivery guy who delivered a hatbox, but someone stole it, so you mount an entire operation to get it back, which involves developing an entire underground base with agents, research, brainwashing captured agents, a black market for items, and more. What's both fun - and a bit annoying - is that for each mission you pick an agent, and they have all kinds of quirks and problems that they (sometimes) eventually lose as you level them up. But, if they die - well, that's it! Agent gone! Also, you'll often get wounded and you need to pay to heal them, and it takes time. So, I've had a few "favorite" agents that died on the job and then I'm stuck using the wonkier ones, which is harder on harder missions because of their quirks. The gameplay itself is quite chaotic - which I deal poorly with since I'll panic - but I think more playthroughs will have me learning the quirkiness of the controls and mechanics and thus doing better? I've only played about 2 1/2 hours so far, so I think there's plenty to get through. Though, I have finished found two special hats.. as a sign of progress.Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:04:54 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7956&iddiary=13458https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7955I had the case and manual, but no game. So I bought the game. That seems kind of silly, but it is what it is. So, I had to test the game - to make sure the cart worked and all that. So far, it's pretty interesting! I played the first "mission" (it said the difficulty was easy) and it took me a bit to get used to Kirby's swallow-and-gain-special-ability power. Some enemies give you a special ability when you press a button after swallowing them. This is instead of just "firing" them. There's like three buttons and I still get them confused to be honest. We'll see what happens as I play more. The first mission has maybe 4-5 levels. And then it rolled credits! I was surprised of course - but I knew there was more game. The credits also rolled really fast which was kind of funny. And then it played a "of its era in terms of quality" CG cut-scene/movie. Weird. Now I need to explore all the other things that opened up. There's also a 2-player co-op mode...Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:34:15 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7955&iddiary=13457https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7954There's plenty to grind here - new characters, upgrade buildings, level up characters, etc. And it's fun - at least I've been enjoying it so far (I've made it to level 4 of the pit - the fungus world!). I think what I enjoy the most now is that a "run" (this is really quite the roguelike) is - when you succeed ~20 minutes. Shorter if you die sooner, of course. So, it feels like a nice "snack" game experience - I harvest resources, do a run, harvest again, and exit. It hits a sweet spot for me in that sense. Shorter runs would probably feel less interesting because not enough development of your within-run build (which upgrades have I picked up, etc.), and longer then becomes a proper sit down and play session.Wed, 19 Nov 2025 21:19:10 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7954&iddiary=13456https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7949I started this last night, finished it today - all the trophies and everything which was a surprise to me. As in, I wasn't expecting I'd be able to do that - or that I'd even do it. It's a strange game - strange in that most of the time I'm breezing through and clearing levels, and then I get stuck. Stuck real bad, and it takes me a while to figure it out. And then back to breezing. My first time getting stuck was literally on the 2nd level. I assumed it was a "easy this is kind of the tutorial" and it probably was - but there I was stuck like a fly on honey. It was quite frustrating! As you'd expect the game has it's own logic, and you really need to lean on the prompt to figure out what to do. I think that where it kind of breaks the most is when there are different expectations for different characters. And the only way to find out what they are (for some, others have a name that helps) is to try out different characters in different scenes to see how they react. A different reaction from the rest means this character has some additional rule in place you don't know, but need to assume or figure out. At least, I think that's how it works based on my playing it... So, it's weirdly a game where it can sometimes be quite hard to get to a solution just from the characters and the scene - because there'll be something that won't work and you won't know why. For example, there's some scenes with a queen - if she's kidnapped, she loses her crown and the kidnapper can crown themselves! But, if you then kidnap the kidnapper - the queen doesn't automatically let herself be crowned. She often has to go to the throneroom to see the crown there before you can do "queen actions" (like execute someone). This didn't make sense to me - but at least this difference in behavior seemed consistent. I don't know how it's encoded behind the scenes - maybe the original kidnapper has a desire/goal to be crowned, but the queen doesn't implicitly? I don't know. So, the game's short - but it is fun - with the best part probably being the alternate stories you're sometimes encouraged to figure out, the devil levels you unlock once you finish and the stamps (which you also unlock). I could have sworn I had done some of the stamp requirements during my first playthrough, but perhaps I was wrong? Those were a bit annoying because I wanted to have the requirements to look at while trying to figure out which story page might work...and some only work with the devil as well! In separate work I've written (with colleagues!) about game goal hierarchies (the goals you achieve on the way to achieveing a game's ultimate goal, e.g. winning, finishing) and how games have a parallel narrative goal hierarchy which is how players make sense of the meaning of the game goals they're achieving - e.g. moving your character to a certain location on the screen is how you can "rescue the princess" (or whatever). This game is a really strong example of a game where the puzzle/challenge is figuring out what the game goal hierarchy is in order to achieve a narrative goal you're given! I'm excited to dig into this game a bit more - at least in the context of the goal hierarchies and academic stuff I'm working on!Sun, 02 Nov 2025 22:50:59 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7949&iddiary=13449https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7944I played this for a few hours. Mostly I wanted to see where things were at with Super Monkey Ball. I wasn't expecting to find a wildly different or innovative game - just super monkey ball... which is what I found, though I did spend more time on the minigames. I've never been a huge fan of Super Monkey Ball - and I'm sort of surprised by how little love it gets in the context of people who like to play games that are really hard. This game is like Super Meat Boy (oh wow, I just realized they're both SMB! Which is also Super Mario Bros...). I mean, clearing some levels isn't THAT hard - but to get all the bananas AND record times? This is some serious dedication IMO. Lots of practice and real finesse. Cool stuff? Well, I quickly unlocked Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza series), Sonic and Tails, and "Jet"? (the skater from Jet Set Radio). I thought it was a nice touch that when you pick these characters instead of bananas you get pill bottles, rings, and spray cans! (like in their original games). The sounds are even different! (with the Sonic ring sound being particularly memorable for me). I then played all the mini-games. Some are more fun than others - and the be fair I was either playing solo or against AI, which is probably the less ideal way to play. I was surprised by how hard some of the games were! There's one in which I was only able to score once! (forget the name, but it's the one where you roll down a ramp and then up into the air - you're supposed to open the capsule to glide/drift to a target to get points. I only landed on a target ONCE. Everything else was a splash into the water because I fell far, far, short of the intended target. So, clearly there's something going on that I didn't understand - how to glide or whatever. And, many of the games have more sophisticated/complicated control schemes than you'd expect for a "mini-game". I thought it was interesting how they're all adapted to "your character is in a ball" - while still being "true" to the original game they're riffing on (lots of sports mini-games - the baseball one was interesting because it's sort of like a pinball in that you have to hit targets to get on base and stuff like that) Anyways, it was fun - but I decided I wouldn't spend all this time on it either...Tue, 21 Oct 2025 12:33:36 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7944&iddiary=13446https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7943I'm slowly dragging out the PSVR games to play them. Strangely this one was a more recent addition - it was cheap, and the back of the box lists all sorts of awards. But... I must have played for 30 minutes or so? Didn't finish the tutorial. I started to get nauseated - not uncommon in VR. But, the game wasn't really working for me either, which was a shame. Especially since it took me a while to get everything ready since I had to charge up both move controllers (one at a time!). The premise is simple, and fun enough, you're a wizard! And you cast spells with your hands doing different motions. I only got to see three things - the teleport action, creating and throwing a fireball, and summoning a protective shield. This was fine. The bigger problem I had was that I was never able to figure out how to adjust the facing. It always felt like I was facing to the side (90 degrees away from the TV) and never re-centering. And, since I was mostly facing away from the TV - lots of the hand gestures worked poorly because my hand/arm was obscured. Weirdly, this seemed like the default setting! So, I'm sitting, facing ahead, and the game then instructs me on how to do the fireball with "ghost" hands - that are off to the side... I went into settings and stuff and couldn't figure it out. This might be a "user error" situation? Anyways, the nausea was enough of an excuse for me to just uninstall the game. A shame really. I wonder if the version that won all these awards was on a different platform?Sat, 18 Oct 2025 19:08:11 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7943&iddiary=13445https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7940I'm 7 and a 1/2 hours in...and the game gets more interesting the longer I play. By interesting I really mean stylish and with cool effects and ideas. I had been lamenting that we hadn't played a "typical" point and click adventure game when this one came up on the docket. (previous game was Creaks, which I thought was a point and click in that sense, but it wasn't). So, lucky me! This one is a "traditional" point and click. At least in the sense of having an inventory and having to figure out when to use which items. But, there isn't really much in the way of conversations with characters and you get the items mostly as a result of solving a puzzle (like opening a locked door and the room inside has the item) and where to use the item isn't really a challenge...it's just getting the items in the first place that is tricky! And wow is this game tricky. LOTS of puzzles - all kinds, logic and word, and visual, etc. The hardest thing so far is not knowing when you have all the info to solve a puzzle and when you don't..which sort of sucks and it's been sort of trial and error for me so far. There IS a logic to certain kinds of rooms and things like that - for example the wonky movie posters are all clues to a number lock that will open the door. So, those are all nearby. But, I just solved a year room - and the insides of that room were clues to a puzzle box that's in a totally different room. Id forgotten about that so it took a while to figure out where to go. Sigh. Curiously I feel like there's never a MILLION open threads to pull on - I seem to get stuck and can then pull on a different thing, or am able to open a new door, then open some shortcuts and so on. The biggets "mega(?)" puzzle/theme so far is this giant maze I need to solve - and I've done it three times! First as the main maze (the red maze), then in a portable videogame cartridge I bought in the game (even in videogames I buy more videogames, lol), and the third was when I found quiz club - which has the same maze again - but in 1st person view (the first time was 3rd person, then 2nd person, and now 1st!). Cool stuff, and creepier the more I play. Supposedly it's an almost 20 hour game? I'm not sure I'll have the brainpower to keep going! But, maybe so? We'll see...Sat, 11 Oct 2025 21:51:10 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7940&iddiary=13442https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934After trekking across the entire map (that took a while) - which was fun in that I ran across a bunch of new creatures...I decided to give up. Not out of boredom or frustration, but mostly because I think I've seen most of what the game has to offer systemically, I'm not particularly engrossed in the story, AND I have a drawer full of other PS4 games I really want to get into... I feel like I played enough of this one (over 12 hours I think) that I gave it a fair shake and can say I played it well enough. And yes, I was having fun - but I feel I have to find new fun elsewhere...the pile of shame has slowly continued growing...Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:35:32 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934&iddiary=13441