WOOOO! I just beat ________!!!!!

[Cupcake]

Warriors games are always fun to me. There's something about beating 1000 nameless faceless peons to a pulp by pushing buttons blindly that feels awesome.

[CJones]

I just beat Sekiro!... FINALLY! 212 hours I spent playing that game  About 80 hours of that was just redoing the first 3/4 of the game after my save got corrupted.

Got the Dragon's Return ending, because after all that, I was going to make damn sure I did everything. Not real clear what happened though. The Divine Child is somehow pregnant with a baby Kuro?? And she and Sekiro travel to China.

Sword Saint Isshin was tough, but nowhere near as obnoxious as the Demon of Hatred. Took me about 2 1/2 hours to beat Isshin. Came within one hit of beating him a couple times and choked. Honestly, I'd say even Owl (Father) was harder. Then again, both the Demon and Owl (Father) are optional.

Honestly, the only really hard part of Isshin was the second phase when he pulls out the spear. He has ludicrous range (not even counting the gun), and the timing on his attacks is very tricky and hard to discern. Phase one you can basically just run around until he starts charging up something and then get behind him, and phase three you can just abuse the lightning reversal.

Now of course, with the recent update, there are "Inner" (read: super) version of Gennichiro, Owl and Isshin. Haven't attempted any of that. I'm debating whether to go for the Shura ending, just so I can say I did everything. Been putting off Horizon Zero Dawn to finish this game though, so maybe I'll switch to that for a while.

Man, that was exhausting...

[Pak-Man]

Finally made it through Mario's Super Picross. I enjoyed it, of course (It's PICROSS!) but this one is almost too much of a good thing. The initial 3 sets of puzzles become 3 then 6 then 10, then come the super puzzles, then the ultra puzzles, then the hidden puzzles, and then, never one to be upstaged, Wario's hidden puzzles. 300 in all, and the last 100 or so are a challenge even for veteran Picrossers. I loved it, but I'm happy to be free to move on.

[CJones]

Just finished There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension.

This is the most "meta" game I've ever seen. Not particularly difficult, or long, but certainly worth playing. Currently $13 on Steam.

[Iron Curtain]

Just finished There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension.

This is the most "meta" game I've ever seen. Not particularly difficult, or long, but certainly worth playing. Currently $13 on Steam.

If you want to play another game like it, play Dude, Stop!.

[CJones]

Just finished There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension.

This is the most "meta" game I've ever seen. Not particularly difficult, or long, but certainly worth playing. Currently $13 on Steam.

If you want to play another game like it, play Dude, Stop!.

Never heard of it but looks interesting. I'll probably check it out eventually, when I have some more money Thanks for the recommendation

[CJones]

I just beat Horizon: Zero Dawn!

That was a fantastic game! Also one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. I'm sorry it's over. 81 hours it took me, including the DLC and pretty much all the side quests, except the hunting trophies. But I tend to spend a lot of time dicking around in these sorts of games. I ran into one game breaking bug during the DLC that forced me to skip through some conversations or else the game would crash. Other than that it was entirely glitch free.

For such a silly sounding premise as "fight robot dinosaurs with a bow and arrows", they did a good job of coming up with a credible back story for how the world ended up like this. I won't spoil it, but it's pretty bleak. The DLC fills in some holes in the main story, and there are a ton of datapads lying around that also help explain the state of the world, many of which I'm sure I missed. Still, the question of what set the events of the game in motion is left for the clearly intended sequel. Hopefully we won't have to wait ages for it to come to PC.

If I were to offer any gameplay tips it would just be this: Hoard Blaze. It's the only resource I used a lot of that I regularly ran out of. Including during the final boss fight, which sucked because you absolutely need fire weapons for that fight.

Well worth playing if you have a PS4 or a gaming PC.

[Pak-Man]

Took me a couple decades, but I finally beat Grim Fandango!

It's totally deserving of its status in the upper echelons of Adventure Games, but there are more than a few "Moon Logic" puzzles and a number of "OK, but why did I just do that?" moments. Stick a skeleton hand into a snow machine? Sure. Seems like a good idea for some reason. I could have done without ALL of year 3. Just the worst puzzles there.

The story and writing are amazing, though, and the journey is totally worth some '90s Adventure Game frustration. 

[CJones]

I just beat Enter the Gungeon, finally! 180 hours.

And by beat I mean I finally got the last bullet piece, the Prime Primer, to the forge, beat the Dragun and killed the past. As the Convict, who I personally think is the best character (of the standard four), but I know I'm in the distinct minority on that. I've had the other three pieces for a couple years now, but the Prime Primer was a pain in the ass since you essentially have to skip the first two shops to get it.

It occurred to me last night, I haven't really played Gungeon since I stopped drinking. I had a major alcohol and benzodiazepine problem up until November of 2019 when I went through rehab. I sleep a lot worse, but I can think much more clearly. Turns out the game is WAY easier sober Took me maybe 5 tries to get the Primer and finish the Bullet, and another 5 to actually kill the Dragun.  I had a really absurd run where I had so much armor and health I could just tank the Dragun. Then Black Stache went down like a chump.

Now, time to beat the Lich   Actually there's still quite a lot of stuff left to do.

Hunter and Marine done now too. Just the Pilot left. Unfortunately, he is by far the worst character.

[CJones]

Got my first Lich kill today, after a truly ridiculous run. First off, I had Clone, which if you don't know, restarts the game when you die, keeping all your equipment. Died on the Dragun, then came all the way back to kill the Dragun and finally the Lich. Went into Bullet Hell with about 20 HP, and I had 2 left when I finished him off 1 hour 47 minutes that took.

Had the Amulet of the Pit Lord plus White and Blue Guon Stones, which all synergize together to make a pretty strong defense. Also, the Blue Guon Stone with the Amulet rips bosses to pieces. Also had an AK-47, Helix Rounds, Silver Bullets, the Automated Turret, and best of all the Cog of Battle, which increases damage by 75% after perfect reloads. The AK-47 has a huge magazine, so I could reload once, then burn off half the Lich's life bar in a few seconds. Took maybe 5-10 seconds per phase.

I also unlocked the Robot in the same run. In fact, I started the run specifically to do that. It just happened to go REALLY well. Still haven't unlocked The Bullet. I think I need to find him one more time, but he refuses to spawn 

[Pak-Man]

Well it took me long enough to beat one of my favorite games ever, but I've finally managed a victory in Civilization VI. I was planning for a cultural victory, but I ended up just oozing influence and scored a Diplomatic victory instead. I played as a random civ and ended up as Jayavarman VII, who was a lot of fun to play.

[Iron Curtain]

The Blackwell Bundle. That is, the Blackwell Legacy, Blackwell Unbound, Blackwell Convergence, and the Blackwell Deception. I was so enamored by them that I bought The Blackwell Epiphany which wasn't on sale, and I'm still playing it!

[Pak-Man]

The Blackwell games are the absolute bomb. Fun story, great writing, puzzles make actual real-world sense. If you like those, Unavowed by the same company is also a delight.

[Iron Curtain]

The Blackwell games are the absolute bomb. Fun story, great writing, puzzles make actual real-world sense. If you like those, Unavowed by the same company is also a delight.

Real truth: My sister went to school with Dave Gilbert, and I know him IRL. I tell him his games are awesome every chance I get. I wasn't really impressed with the Shivah (at least gameplay-wise), but the Blackwell games won me over, so we have an extremely positive relationship.

[Pak-Man]

I have conquered the original Bravely Default. I was well on my way a few years back when I lost the game somewhere while on vacation and only decided last month that it was lost forever and I should track down a copy on Ebay, since the new sequel is out on Switch.

It's an awesome RPG with a neat story twist I legit did not see coming. It's a big love letter to the Final Fantasy games of yore, when it was all about four heroes saving elemental crystals to keep the world from being destroyed.

The second half of the game is somewhat divisive. Without spoiling anything, you get stuck in a time loop and have to play through the game again (and again and again.. 5 times in all.) You're more powerful each time, and you get the benefit of an airship to whisk you to the key destinations, so the game is significantly shorter with the extra playthroughs. There are also a bunch of side quests that change just a little bit with each playthrough to keep things interesting. They're optional, but if you want the WHOLE story (And I did) you'll want to play through them all each time.

Anyway, along the way I decided to grind until I had every job maxed out and everyone was on level 99. I've never done that in an RPG before, but the game practically begs you to do it and gives you a lot of nice shortcuts to make the grind more tolerable.

Now on to Bravely Second! With luck I'll be a good way through that soon, as I hope to get Bravely Default 2 for my Birthday next week.