#God I hope Silksong is fun too

[bluegekk0]

did grimm ever visit pharloom in your au

I like to think so, yeah. Pharloom existing was actually the biggest reason why I took the AU in the direction I did - in the way that Hallownest is just one of many lands one can travel between. I'm not sure how they will explain the memory loss thing implied in the first game (as in, when you leave Hallownest), maybe it'll end up being retconned. If that's the case, then even better for me, since that isn't a thing in my AU.

But to get back to the question. Grimm used to travel a lot, especially before meeting FPK (he still continued to travel, but he stopped by Hallownest far more often to visit him). So at some point, he definitely visited Pharloom. I haven't really had an in-depth brainstorming session about that kingdom yet, I'm waiting for more details about it once (if) Silksong releases (I don't know whether Silksong will be canon in the AU yet, but either way, I'll definitely include Pharloom one way or another).

Since Pharloom seems to be very song/music themed, perhaps that's the reason why he visited (and likely still visits) it. The Troupe are basically like a theatre in the AU, and they need instruments for their performances. Perhaps there are luthiers in Pharloom who craft very rare instruments Grimm would show interest in. Maybe some of the Grimmkin originate from there, Grimm always searches for new recruits for his troupe, and a kingdom centered around music would without a doubt be a home to many young, ambitious musicians, or those artists who lost everything and would search for a new life - Grimm's troupe could give them just that. They would be tied to him through the Nightmare Realm, but compared to many gods, he does not require worship, only loyalty. It's not surprising that many would accept his offer.

And lastly, he would stop by to buy gifts for the family. Zote in particular shows some interest in playing instruments, so Grimm would keep that in mind as he passes through Pharloom. And of course, since the kingdom is still full of life, that means there's plenty of merchants that would offer shiny trinkets or rare crafting resources, which he could bring home as a present for Vyrm.

I would love to put some more thought into different lands. Hallownest and Pharloom are the only named kingdoms that we know of, but I imagine there's many different kingdoms, towns or small settlements you can stumble upon during travels. Some are dead and offer lingering Nightmare Essence that Grimm collects for his rituals, but some are thriving.

Maybe one day I'll create some kind of map to show where Hallownest and Pharloom are located. Hallownest, in my AU, is located in the mountains and has a cold climate, so it would most likely be up north. Pharloom? It's said it's a distant land, and with the coral reefs we see on screenshots, that'd imply it's a lot warmer than Hallownest. And there's also other lands I could include - Vyrm's homeland, the natural habitat of the now extinct wyrms, or the land destroyed by war where Divine originates from, among others.

I love doing worldbuilding for the AU do I do hope I get the inspiration to do this one day! I think it would be fun. Though maybe it's best if I finish the Hallownest fauna first so I don't put too may things on my plate at once hahaha

[videobun-gameblog]

33 (oh no) Games I'm looking forward to in 2023 and beyond, including 2022 (and a few earlier) games that I missed

Games Releasing in 2023 onward I'm looking forward to most:

Oh my god, there's way too many.

Darkest Dungeon II: I need to play the first still, a game I know I'll like, I just haven't because I know once I do It'll take over my life for the month.

Nine Sols: Incredible souls-y sidescroller with a boss demo that instantly made me know I NEED this game. Very stylish, pretty, dark, and just sorta my jam wrt its aesthetics on top of its gameplay being pretty darn good.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell: I assume this is coming out in 2023, though you never know with these indie projects. This is supposed to be the last game in the series, so this is a fairly big release!

Returnal (PC): Finally, I'll be able to play it. I no longer want a PS5 :x

Hollow Knight: Silksong: For all we know this could be another couple years out, but I'm holding out hope that 2023 is the year. The first game is extremely good.

Endless Dungeon: I've been playing the open dev betas and I'm liking how this game is shaping up, even if it's got some divisive changes from Dungeon of the Endless. That said, I'm hopeful it'll still be a fun multiplayer game for a couple months.

Wildfrost: Cool card game demo I tried out during a Steam Next Fest event, I think it'll be a good time.

Another Crab's Treasure: From the developer of Going Under, It's supposed to be a souls-y experience, so I'm hoping it can deliver on that, I liked their previous game even if it wasn't to all of my friends' taste.

Gunbrella: Another Next Fest demo I tried out, it's REALLY fun, the movement is extremely good and has high potential to go ridiculously hard if the level designers have the guts to go all out in the final release.

UFO 50: I have no clue if 2023 is going to be the year for this collection, but It's in the hands of Derek Yu and a handful of other very good indie devs, a collection of 50 dang games that's been in development for quite a while now.

Animal Well: A really stylish pixel metroidvania that I'm very interested in.

Hades II: I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is actually going to hit in 2024 (unless it's confirmed for 2023, I didn't pay attention) but I really enjoyed the first, Supergiant really never misses imho.

Skate Story: I'm not super big on skating games but I absolutely can't get over how good the aesthetic of this game is, it's, as the kids might put it, "a vibe".

Remnant II: The first Remnant wasn't really anything too special, but it was a fun low double digit hour multiplayer romp that I'd happily do again with some improvements, which is what I'm hoping this ends up being. It looks promising.

Enchain: ANOTHER Next Fest demo entry, this FPS has some of the most satisfying movement I've ever played around with in recent memory, with so much cool tech innately available to you that only gets revealed every few minutes, it's ripe for sequence breaking and speedruns. Absolutely keeping an eye out on this, even though I expect it to be done after 2023.

Lone Ruin: This will likely be one of the first games I'll get to in 2023, Next Fest really introduced me to a ton if interesting games, and this one is no exception. Isometric action roguelike twin stick shooter sorta thing with a cool look and a wave mode to boot, it's addicting, I know I'm going to like this.

Lies of P: Just a truly bizarre souls inspired game that, despite my skepticism, I can't help but be intrigued. The concept is goofy as hell, but I just have to know if it's good or not.

Replaced: I'll be honest I don't know enough about this game to be sure I'll be into it, but the Game Awards trailer caught my eye.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: Look, as little as I care about Star Wars as a whole, I really enjoyed the first game, so I'm 100% on board for this sequel.

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon: I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of an Armored Core fan poser; I haven't really played any other Armored Core outside of dabbling in what I retroactively recognize as Armored Core at a friend's house ages ago, it's that kind of game for me. Still, I've loved everything Fromsoft has put out lately, I'm a budding mecha fan getting into all sorts of mecha media lately, it's time I really sink my teeth into one of these; honestly, I might play some of the older games before this releases to get a taste.

Earthblade: This is supposedly coming out in 2024, and it doesn't seem like a really intense platformer along the lines of Celeste, but I like the dev, I'm curious. I'm sure it will be interesting.

The Lords of the Fallen: Lords of the Fallen (2014) was one of the most mid games I've ever played, a fairly repetitive slog that I, for some reason, felt compelled to 100%. This is apparently under a new director/team (??) so this confusingly named reboot is something I'm cautiously optimistic about.

Final Fantasy XVI: I'm not really a big Final Fantasy fan, my experience is in the first two games. That said, the action of this game looks cracked, I can't deny. I'm interested. I know the writing for the series lately has been compelling, and the combat designer for this game worked on Dragon's Dogma and Devil May Cry V, so I can only assume this one is going to be nuts.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn: From the developers of Ashen (which was very souls inspired), this one looks like it's got more of its own identity which is cool. I also think it follows that game's lore?? Who knows, we'll find out.

Games from 2022 and earlier that I need to get to:

Norco: I just didn't have time to get around to it, narrative type games tend to get put on the back burner for me.

Citizen Sleeper: See above, same reasons.

Disco Elysium: See above, except longer standing.

Kentucky Route Zero: See above, and begin laughing.

Outer Wilds: See above, except with the context that I played an hour and just sort of forgot. I'm sure it's good, and I know it's short-ish, but here's my sort of hot take: the [spoiler, gimmick] is something I always thing is COOL in games but is never something I actually LIKE that much in games. I always feel like I'll find one that really clicks, but something about it sort of short circuits my brain and willpower.

Thymesia: A souls-y game that just sort of went under my radar and I couldn't afford and didn't have the time for

Hyper Demon: Partially due to lack of money and partially due to not being done with Devil Daggers quite yet

Signalis: I have no excuse - well yes, money. But aside from that, I know I should play it.

NieR Replicant: I just forgot! I own it, I just.. didn't have time!

[a-spectacular-pigeon]

Hollow knight is one of those things that I love to death, but can’t talk about. Yes, beautiful artwork, yes intricate, haunting lore, yes interesting characters. But Hollow Knight is so viscerally fun on a mechanical level that it overrides my ability to really talk about it. I can’t EXPLAIN to people how good jumping and slashing is. I want to take the feelng from my bones and transplant it into other people so we can both be excited about it.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Oh my GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD

Dragon Quest rep I don’t necessarily care for but the alts being the different protags is really really cool.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games being called that is nice because the titles got too long, also the fact that like every single character is getting a different outfit per sport is sick, plus skateboarding and surfing and shit? Awesome.

Witcher III is really cool, I might pick it up maybe.

I feel like we knew Silksong was coming to Switch but definitive confirmation is neat.

Cadence of Hyrule looks like a lot of fun but I don’t think I’ll pick it up when it releases in 2 days - I’m very low on money and would rather pick up Mario Maker 2

BANJO KAZOOIE IN SMASH IS FUCKING WONDERFUL my video quality was suffering a bit so i saw the pixelated thing and thought “no i don’t want minecraft steve” and it was BANJO AND I WAS SO HYPE

And

Oh

My

Fucking

GOD

how else would they surpass Breath of the Wild but make another Breath of the Wild? At first I thought “oh fuck more DLC with crappy cutscenes set in the past” but nah we getting full fucking sequel! I thought that more than every other Zelda game to ever have existed, BotW deserved post-Ganon content, and honestly I’m pretty fucking okay with that being a full blown sequel. Zelda was with Link too and that means she might be able to get more and better character development, or even be fucking playable? God I hope so, I don’t want her to be kidnapped by something in like hour 1. BotW is my second favourite game ever but it had room for improvement in a lot of areas, hopefully this sequel is that.

There was obviously lots of other cool announcements, though since none of it’s really relevant to me I won’t bother mentioning it.

[rukafais]

I really hope silksong is a sequel becuz I think it will tie up more loose ends that way. But I wonder if we’ll meet any vessels that wandered out of hallownest and into pharloom. Who knows, maybe that’s where little ghost was before coming back to hallownest

i definitely agree anon! though knowing team cherry they’ll answer some questions and then create even more questions lmao...i really do hope we’ll get to see an escaped vessel or two though, that would be aces!!

and god if characters in pharloom made references to the knight/little ghost because they journeyed from that kingdom to Hallownest and were doing their own little hero quest i would be so fucking hyped, that would be such a fun way to tie the games together without being too overt about it

[8bitsupervillain]

End of the Year 2019: Games of the Year

Hello everyone, it's that special time of year again! Time for me to shower praise upon some games that I absolutely adored, while mentioning some games that I liked, but not really enough to put on this list. For a remarkable change of pace I have a full list of ten for the best of 2019, however I only have four for the pre-2019 so that's a bit disappointing. If you notice any glaring omissions for the best of the year the simple explanation is that I probably just didn't play it, or I didn't play it enough for it to enter consideration. I also didn't really play anything this year that stands out as particularly bad, there was maybe one game, but I don't have it in me to write a full length thing to expound upon its terrible state. There are also some games that I'm disappointed I didn't get to play, but hopefully I'll be able to in 2020.

Honorable Mentions:

God Eater 3. I've sunk almost twenty hours in to this game, but I haven't played enough of it to really make a declaration that I think it's good. I still intend on playing the game to the finish, but for all I know the game could take a real nose-dive in quality towards the end. I have a desire to go back and play the previous God Eater games as well, so I guess that could be considered an endorsement. I like the visual style in this game, the models all look very nice, and the monster designs are pretty neat to look at as well.

Remnant: From the Ashes. I never quite got to finishing this game, but from what I played this was a pretty fun little co-op shooter. There are some things that the game does that I don't particularly care for, some of the one-shot enemies in the swamp level, the confusing design of this one dungeon in the desert area being particularly troublesome things I remember. I would love to go back and finish this one, but as it stands it'll have to stay with an honorable mention.

King of Fighters XIV. I'm not great at fighting games, but I still enjoyed this game a whole hell of a lot. But like I said I'm not great at the game, but it's a fun one to pop in every once in a while just to get annihilated by all the killers online.

Death Stranding. Please don't post spoilers here. I've greatly enjoyed my time with this game, but as with Remnant and God Eater 3 I didn't finish this one. I've played maybe about twelve hours into this one, but I don't know if that's enough to really comment on the games overall quality. As with God Eater 3 for all I know it could take a real nose-dive in quality.

Hollow Knight. I played a very little amount of Hollow Knight, but I liked what I've played so far. Hope to go back and finish this one before Silksong comes out.

The Elder Scrolls Legends. I quite liked the Alliance War and Jaws of Oblivion expansions. It's a shame they've cancelled all further expansions for this game, because I liked the story based ones they've put out in the past and I was hopeful for more sets in the future. It was never a particularly great game, but I liked what they had going for the longest time.

Pre-2019 Games of the Year

04: Death Mark

This is a fun little RPG/Visual Novel horror game that came out in 2018 that I got a chance to play back in May. It's an investigation game where your character and a host of other characters are trying to solve the mystery of their death mark. A strange design that looks like a bite that materializes on their bodies one day. If they don't get to the root of the problem they die a horrible grisly death. I like the episodic nature of the game with each chapter revolving around a mystery involving a different type of vengeful spirit than the other chapters. There is a small combat element that happens toward the end of each chapter that isn't particularly deep to deal with as it's more puzzle-based rather than being an actual combat engine. It doesn't feature much in the way of blood and gore, but what's there is frankly mortifying to look at. I played it on the Switch, but the game is available on the PS4 and PC as well. Death Mark is definitely worth playing through at least once.

03: Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate

I'm ever so slowly going through my 3DS backlog and finally played through this one. I can understand why people say that 4U is their favorite Monster Hunter game because it is just an absolute blast to play through. I really like the design of the monsters in this game especially Gore Magala and Masharu Magala. I don't know if I would recommend it over World or Generations Ultimate but I had a hell of a time playing through this game.

02: Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

I love the way the combat in this game feels. I love how you can climb on the monsters and start stabbing away at them. Magic and ranged combat feel really good, and I especially like the Pawn system so you can keep trying out other player's pawns until you hit that sweet spot of the type of combat you want to have for the game. The story is a little basic, kind of your typical "slay the evil dragon" storyline even though it's great how the game gives you a personal reason to want the dragon dead. Guy stole your heart after all, literally ripped it from your chest. I liked the story towards the end when you actually face off with the dragon and all that occurs from then on that was great fun. I played this on both the PS4 and the Switch port that came out earlier this year (I guess I could've put this in the 2019 category), and I was surprised at how well the Switch was able to play the game. The game doesn't look completely awful in handheld mode, and it kept a stable framerate throughout my playthrough. The PS4 and PC versions look better of course, but the Switch version keeps the spirit of the game rather well and is just as good to play there as on the other consoles.

01: Nioh

Bill Nioh's adventures in feudal Japan was a great time. This game made me consider the notion of a mission/loot based Diablo done in a Dark Souls style to not be the worst thing I've ever heard. My only major complaint with the game is that there's too much vendor trash in this game. There's also the problem that you'll be constantly switching from one version of your weapon to another with barely any time to gain "familiarity" with your weapon. Familiarity means you hit slightly harder than you would with another version of that weapon, but with how many variations on whatever weapon your using you'll constantly be scrapping older versions of your weapon and armor without really raising your familiarity. I wish that the game would've gone with an experience meter per-weapon deal rather than loading you up with a million variations of each weapon. Like a leveling bar for Katana, Dual-Blades, Nodachi, and so on, there's already a skill-tree for each weapon, so I think an experience meter for each weapon would work better. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but I think it might work better.  I like the mission-based focus of this game rather than being a pseudo-open world affair like most Soulslike games. I still need to play through the expansions before Nioh 2 comes out.

Games of the Year 2019

10: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

This was a good Metroidvania to play through, and certainly better than I thought it was going to be. I enjoyed the various weapons you can acquire throughout the game, the spear and great swords were particularly fun in my playthrough for instance. I have some minor complaints that arise towards the end of the game, but they're not major issues. A boss fight or two will just absolutely destroy the framerate while you're fighting them (I can only imagine how they play on the Switch if the game was dying on the PS4 Pro). I liked some of the extra bosses you can fight like the Millionaire's Bane and the bonus boss that's Definitely Not Simon.

09: Untitled Goose Game

An amusing game to play, and I had a fun time playing it. It's definitely not the deepest or longest game to come out this year (from start to finish the game is maybe four hours long), but it's a fun enough "nuisance simulator." It reminds me of playing a game like Hitman, cause Goose Game is definitely a stealth game, even if every time I completed an objective I unfurled my wings and honked to assert my dominance over the people in the village.

08: Samurai Shodown

As previously mentioned I am not good at fighting games. Yet despite my being bad at them I find myself constantly going back to SamSho just to get obliterated online. I positively adore the art style in this game and the completely vicious gameplay. Unlike some other fighting games you can be destroyed within mere seconds of the match starting. If you play super poorly your opponent can cut your lifebar down from 100% to next to nothing with one or two moves. It's very exhilarating when that happens, or when they do a super that just destroys your lifebar. It reminds me a lot of samurai movies in that way where guy does the move and the opponent just stands there for a second then falls over dead. I get the impression that this is going to be a "small pond" scenario where there's the handful of godlike players and everyone else will just get bodied everyday, but I really love this game. I absolutely despise the final boss in the arcade mode.

07: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Speaking of games that are absolutely torture to play. Sekiro is really insidious, the first half or so of the game is relatively easy, but then you hit a certain boss and the game decides its done toying with you and will just start absolutely and utterly destroying you. Every single boss fight from that point forward are some of the most brutal and agonizing fights that have been put in a video game. I had to give up on playing this game for a few weeks because I was getting too tired of throwing myself against the wall in the hopes that this time I'll get the best of this bastard. After finally killing the final boss I had vowed to never play the game again. Then two days later I started a new-game plus playthrough. Whoops! I love the verticality of this game, being able to jump and use a grappling hook was absolutely great. Despite my complaints about the sheer difficulty of the bosses  I love the combat in this game. It is particularly exhilarating when a guy makes to stab you with a spear and you stomp it into the ground and take him out yourself. Masataka Oniwa and the Divine Dragon are hands down the best fights in the game, with the final boss being a particularly noteworthy bastard of a fight. Oniwa and the Dragon are great because of the sheer spectacle of the fights, whereas the final boss is great because of he is a great amalgamation of everything the game has thrown to you at that point. I liked this game a lot, but I certainly don't hold it against anyone who decides the difficulty is too much.

06: Nioh 2 Beta

Meanwhile Nioh 2's beta was an absolute gem of a thing that I played this year. Sadly I didn't get into the private alpha towards the start of the year, but I did download the public beta and proceeded to sink nearly thirty hours into it. I love the new weapon they added to the game the switch glaive, which is a combination knuckle weapon/spear/scythe depending on your stance. In low stance it's a lot like Bloodborne's switch-axe or spear in that the blade covers your fist and you punch it into enemies. Mid-stance it turns into a spear, and high turns it into a scythe and I had great fun trying out all the forms in this beta. I adore the fact that the game gives you a devil trigger for your spirit animals, and I love the fact that this game has a character creator. It seems like they're keeping the volume of the drops to the same level as the first game, but that's fine. I cannot wait to get my hands on the full version.

05: Devil May Cry 5

This was a great game, filled to the brim with some amazing set-pieces and great moments. It very much feels like a "greatest hits" version of Devil May Cry combining all the elements from the four original DMCs and also bringing over some stuff from DmC. I was worried a bit about the game being similar to DMC 4 and splitting the action into "Here's the Nero section, here's Dante's, and V's" but it worked out pretty well. It gives you a mission or two to get used to how the characters play but not too much time that it feels like "you've learned this character, but screw that learn Dante." It all blends itself really well. They each have their own feel which works really great with their differences in character, but for my money Nero is the best to play as. The story is also really fun to play through, it has some amazing moments even if some of the stuff is really silly. Also the game gives us Nico, and she's really great.

04: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

The jump in difficulty from the High-Rank quests to Master-Rank was crazy. Maybe it's because I got rusty, not having played World since roughly February, but I was not really prepared for the increase in difficulty. That said I still adore this game, plus they added both Zinogre and Stygian Zinogre, the only way they could've made an already great game even better is if they were like "and here's Gore Magala and Masharu Magala." I like the new hunter's hub, and they made the game so much better with all the variations of monsters they added to this game. I like the Seething Bazelgeuse and Blackveil Vaal Hazak a lot, and the Ebony Odogaron has an amazing looking set of armor. My only wish was that they add some variations to other monsters, I would've loved to see a variation to Kushala Daora or Teostra and Lunastra. I like the clutch-claw very much even if it's the reason my deaths in hunts has skyrocketed. I can't help but wonder what they're going to do for the next Monster Hunter. What can they do to improve this for the inevitable PS5 and Xbox versions? HD version of Gen Ultimate?

03: Blasphemous

The past couple of years I've grown really dismissive of pixel-art 2D games. Just something about the way they look made me grow weary of them, and maybe I've missed out on some amazing games. Then I believe it was E3 2017 I saw a trailer for Blasphemous and I was instantly drawn to it. There was some combination of the religious horror and gore that just made me very excited. Then the game more or less disappeared, then I laid eyes on this game's trailer and I was instantly back in. This game is absolutely wonderful to play, I love the unlockable moves the game gives you as well as the amazing bleak tone and atmosphere in this game. I like the fact that the more you die in the game the more the game covers up your available MP meter, that's a nifty little mechanic, and I liked the paying money to cure yourself from that problem. It's flavorful, and fits with the tone very nicely. I plan to one day go deeper into why I think this game is as good as I think it is, from both a gameplay and aesthetic sense, but I don't think here's really the place to do it. It's a very good 2D exploration game, and I love it to pieces even if I do think some of the bosses aren't good.

02: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Aside from Monster Hunter and Samurai Shodown I probably spent the most time with this game. One campaign playthrough took me over a hundred hours, and I'm presently ten hours into a second playthrough (of four). I went with the Blue Lions for my first playthrough and I really liked the story the game presented to me. It's not without its faults but overall I quite like what it did, I felt that it was a nice upgrade from the storyline from Fates. I get the distinct impression that there was originally going to only be the Red Eagles and Blue Lions routes but then someone at IntSys just went "give the Golden Deer a path" and so here we are. I don't entirely understand why there's the weapon degradation system in this game, for the relic weapons sure, but for your standard weaponry it doesn't make sense. That said I do really enjoy the missions in this game, there aren't any that really stand out as horrible. I like most of the characters in this game, and it kept me gripped for the entire length of the campaign. A ton of fun this game.

01: Resident Evil 2

I played through this game six times in a month, and once more while I was writing this list. I really, really enjoyed my time with Resident Evil 2 and it is positively astounding that Capcom did such a great job with this game. There are some minor complaints I have with the game, the second run having the completely silly and superfluous handgun with its own ammo certainly stands out. However the game is positively gorgeous, sounds phenomenal and is just ridiculously fun to play. In addition to the wonderful base campaigns there's also the revised 4th Survivor and Tofu modes, then in the summer Capcom released the Ghost Survivor DLC missions which are fun little challenge modes to play. I love everything about this game Capcom really knocked it out of the park with this one, and I cannot wait to see what they do with Resident Evil 3.

The real game of the year was all the War of the Spark pre-release, and the drafts I did. Both IRL and in Magic Arena and Online. That and Core 2020 Pre-release.