c/nintendos's Official Head of VNs
Stressed and having a hard time focusing, so not playing much. 🙁
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
This week I finished the (very long) Chapter 3 and got a new cool attack for the A.Advent ("Dominion Obliterator").
Chapter 4 is much shorter according to the Akurasu Wiki, so hopefully I can finish it over the weekend and get the upgraded Lunedrache.
According to a japanese guide there's 7, but the number of stages in each chapter varies a LOT.
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
Finished Chapter 2. There's some side missions "locked" behind requirements like "Character X has 50+ kills" and right now I'm focused on unlocking those.
When I need a break from the grind I go for the "Relic" missions which are nice and short puzzle stages where you have 3 turns and a small number of units (usually 3) to achive a goal.
No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week, had very limited time for playing and SRTY fits my current mood better.
If you enjoy SNES/PS1-era RPGs I'd say yes. It's been a while since I last played OG Sky 1-2, but I first played Sky 3 during the COVID days, then followed it with Zero and Azure which are all games from the same era and had a great time.
Highly recommend you go with the PC version so you have access to QOL features like turbo mode. There's also mods to add the voice acting from the Vita version if you're interested.
Double release too!
Still at work but will happily watch Scarlet elegantly beating the crap out of corrupt nobles later today.
Any recommendations for Mecha anime? 😀
Plenty. Some interesting recommendations among series featured in SRTY:
- Gundam: Witch from Mercury: A recent, self-contained Gundam series that is making its SRT debut.
- G Gundam: The strangest Gundam series, I joke it's "DBZ with Mechs". It's often silly and campy, but really fun.
- Code Geass: While I think this series is overhyped it's still a good watch. It's also extremely popular, and due to that its world and plot is used a LOT in recent SRT games. In fact, the first scene of SRTY is based on the ending of the TV series and will contain massive spoilers if you haven't watched this. 😀
Other suggestions from my favorites:
- Gurren Lagann: I think you mentioned having already seen this.
- GaoGaiGar: Starts as a fun, old-school "monster of the week" series... then gets a more consistent plot running midway and turns into non-stop hype.
- Gunbuster: A very influencial short series (6 episodes). Despite its length it ramps up incredibly, starting as "high school for pilots" and going into epic battles against alien hordes. Episode 5 has favorite battle in this entire genre. NSFW warning for classic 80's Gainax fanservice.
Why is your version of Super Robot Wars Y named different?
Out of habit! "Super Robot Taisen" is how it's called in japanese, and I've been playing them for so long that I got used to that name.
Super Robot Wars Y is on my wishlist and will be my first game in the series.
Make sure to try the demo first, it carries into the game, and you even get some bonuses from having a completed demo save.
As much as I love the franchise the gameplay can get somewhat repetitive and won't be for everybody's tastes. It helps a lot if you're a fan of mecha anime like me. :D
Finished CrossCode!
I think this is one of those "good game, but not for me". I loved the puzzles (even though they can get crazy hard), but didn't care about exploration or combat. I ended up lowering difficulty and rushing through the last 30% or so of the game.
Combat felt way too chaotic, and tracking what's going on became a frustrating exercise for me. Exploration simply wasn't rewarding, as you would often spend time figuring out a complex plataforming puzzle to get to a chest and earn... crafting material you could farm somewhere else.
Playing Witch on the Holy Night!
Not as focused on this as originally planned but I still got decent progress and reached Chapter 4.
Aoko continues to be the highlight of the game, she's such a fun character. Sojiro is also getting a lot more attention now, and I suspect the two will share the "main character" spot. Very curious about his past, I think the game is hinting there's something important hidden there.
Played a bit of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter!
This game is a delight. It's completed redone in terms of gameplay and QOL with all the good features from recent games, while also keeping the mood and charm of the original.
Even though I only played part of the Prologue I'm almost certain I will have high praise when I come back to play it properly.
Playing Super Robot Taisen Y!
Right after starting Trails in the Sky I got a package from Play-Asia that I wasn't expecting for a couple more weeks, so I decided to change plans and go for this game since I think it'll work better with my current mood.
Considering I've beaten 38 games from this series (some of them multiple times) it's safe to say I'm a big fan. It's probably the biggest gaming "comfort food" out there for me, and I'm very happy to have a new game to play after 4 years.
That being said, it's clear this one had to work with significant budget constraints. Reuse of animation is common in this series, but it's really glaring here since the many of the new additions use a more "plastic/toy-like" artstyle with sharper lines and shinier sprites, where the reused ones look softer, more "anime-like".
I'm liking the original units a lot more than the ones from the previous game (SRT30). I chose the female protagonist (Forte) who uses the Lunedrache II, a good take on the "Ninja Mech" concept. And I'm surprised by how much I'm liking the main battleship despite its strange design - the A.Advent being a flying city is a cool concept that I think it's underused.
There's only two I'm watching for certain:
- A Wild Last Boss Appeared!
- May I Ask for One Final Thing?
There's a couple more I may give a try later, but I'm still going though a backlog of series from the last two seasons.
No, didn't do a lot of gaming this week and wanted to focus on finishing CrossCode. But I just beat it during lunch break, so I'll resume that one now.
Playing CrossCode!
On the last stretch, was trying to finish it yesterday but I reached a fairly long and complex puzzle and decided I'd rather stop for the night. 😄 But will almost certainly finish this during the weekend.
I turned combat difficulty all the way down using the sliders in the assists options, which is a fantastic feature I wish was included in all harder games. I don't think that combat in the game is that hard, but I was underleved due to rushing and there's some fairly obvious "stat/gear check" moments I was struggling to get past before I did that.
Harvestella is a very flawed game, but I enjoyed my time with it. You're right that the farming aspects are not as big as people would expect from the way it was marketed, they only takes a few minutes of the daily loop.
The biggest draw of the game is the worldbuilding and story, while gameplay and technical aspects are definitely mid.
~48h including a lot of exploration. There's certainly things I missed, but I don't think there's any "obvious" unexplored spots left in the map.
Finished Hollow Knight: Silksong!
Only got the "regular" ending, but it's good enough for me - the game was already getting frustrating and I don't think I'd have much fun if I tried to go to the "true" ending.
I don't think I have much to add to what I said about the game last week. It's a fantastic game, but also one that requires a high tolerance for difficulty and punishing design. Highly recommend anyone interested in the game to play it on PC so you have access to mods in case you need the lower the difficulty or tweak some of the game's annoyances.
Playing CrossCode!
Resumed this one yesterday and I'm currently in the "lighning" temple. I did lower the enemy damage in the options to make the game a bit more enjoyable to me (in particular after almost getting burned ou by the difficulty in Silksong), I'm using 60% but will tweak this depending on how the battles feel.
The temples are some of the most fun parts of this game, and I'm pleased to know that I have do finish two of these to proceed. I'm also in Chapter 8 (out of 10 according to some Googling), so probably not that much left to finish the game.
No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week since I was focused on finishing Silksong.
That's my undestanding at least.
I do the same "stocking" of games for the backlog, and at least for me it has a lot to do with wanting the physical version (which can get hard to find later), or getting a really good deal in a digital version.
The secondary weapons are mostly useless and as the video said, you need to farm resources to be able to use them.
I'd argue these are some of the few "useful" upgrades since some of these tools are really strong. But I agree they made them quite annoying to use due to the need to manage/farm resources.
Fair. Act 1 is fairly tough but one can still go through the mist to skip last judge at least which is where most struggle.
Though that's quite well hidden and very few people will find that without some Google help. I'd also argue that it's probably harder to go through Sinner's Road and Mist than fighting Last Judge, though YMMV.
It goes from 5 dmg --> 9 dmg --> 13 dmg.
That didn't match my experience, I did a lot of tests after getting the first upgrade and it definitely didn't cut down the hits by that much.
So I was looking into that and according to tests made by a redditor there's some kind of "damage reduction" stat in place that negates some of that buff. Their page is a work-in-progress but they're documenting the exact damage and # of hits to kill each enemy with each upgrade.
