#not too grindy not too boring

[eyreemusings]

LAST PART OF HALLOWEEN EVENT I THINK

definitely not azul

not him pulling the honest businessman card

two princes bickering like children part 2937382

keep doing so bc this shit is free entertainment

VIL IS SO CUTE HERE

and holy those two smiling together?!?!? damn

CHEKAAAA HE IS SO ADORABLE GREETING LEONA HAPPY HALLOWEEN AWWWW

idia with the extroverts

idia is me in this scenario

chenya def walks headless or bodyless around nrc for his own entertainment

I THINK THIS IS ONE OF MY FAV EVENTS THE INTERACTIONS ARE GOLD EVERYONE'S GOT SCREENTIME AND EXECUTED WELL AND THE EVENT REWARDS ARE INSANE PLUS IT IS STAMP MISSIONS SO ITS WAY EASIER THAN THE BATTLE EVENT ONES

i already done the second halloween in jp server but i dont have the time to watch walkthroughs so T_T ill just wait in for it to be in en

[emarezi-backup]

burnout from genshin is SO REAL. i keep finding flaws in this game and so so many things that i wish had been designed differently

[yukipri]

So I've been trying out the new Star Wars Hunters game that came out on Mobile & Switch recently!

I haven't played many brawling type games like this so I wasn't expecting much, but I've actually been really enjoying it so far! I've probably put too many hours into playing (especially since I was super sick around launch and didn't have much else I could do), and I hit max level 50 and Kyber in ranked a while ago... (yeah, playing too much, I know...)

Thought I'd share my initial thoughts though, since I've put in the time!

Note: Some folks have apparently been playing the beta version for a while, but I've only started playing since the public release.

Stuff I like about it so far:

-The really creative and fun SW universe characters is the best part. A blind Miraluka sniper? (Diago) An Ugnaught driving a Droideka? (Slingshot) Literally two Jawas in a trench coat??? (Utooni) They're fun and have great personality, you can read their blurbs here. I like how they're all voiced and also all have their own theme songs (which are honestly heckin catchy)!

-Controls are very intuitive. Again, I am not much of a gamer and have very little experience with these kinds of games, but I picked it up quick. I play on my iPhone and it's great.

-The graphics are GORGEOUS. It looks beautiful, everything moves stunningly smoothly. Honestly it's hard to believe this is a ftp game.

-So far it's very much ftp friendly! Most of the money locked stuff are just cosmetics, and even then there are tons of free ones. One of the characters, Aran Tal, is currently behind a not-too-expensive paywall, but he'll apparently be available for free soon as well.

-The skins for the characters are fun and creative! Imara Vex has one that looks like Durge, and Zaina has one that kinda gives me adult Omega vibes. The store has an active rotation of skins that you can buy with either irl money or in game currency, and apparently old event skins eventually end up in the circulation too. Here are just a couple of my favorites:

-I love the locations! Each one is very Star Wars vibes and has lots of cool lil in-universe elements, like pod racers going through Mos Espa (they can run you over). The time period is New Republic era, so everything is relatively plausible for that time period in universe.

-There's a bunch of different game types, so you don't get bored, and they each have different challenges, and different characters who shine in them. It's unfortunately a bit addicting.

-The events aren't too grindy or tedious (so far).

-I really appreciate the different modes you can play on! The main two modes are casual and ranked, so it's possible to play low stakes and just level up your characters in casual, or try to challenge yourself more in ranked. I appreciate how the limited time events that sometimes throw you into random characters you might not be experienced with are never ranked, so it's okay to suck. Character leveling is the same in both casual and ranked. And I appreciate the Training mode too, where you can try out all of the characters so you're never in a "wtf does this do" in a PVP environment. I get so anxious during PVP if I don't know what I'm doing.

Stuff I hope they improve on:

-Playing with people + party invites are kind of a pain. The invites disappear really quickly, so it's really hard to time it so you can actually play with your friends. It's also hard to know whether the party is going to be playing ranked or casual, and if ranked you can't see the ranks of the folks in your party before agreeing to join, which is a little nerve wracking.

-This is less a complaint, and more just general frustration, but ranking up is pretty tedious near the top, which is to be expected I suppose. Through Aurodium, it was generous because you earn so many more points when you win than when you lose, but in Kyber, you win/lose the same amount. You are judged by your team score, so losses bring down everyone's rank, and it feels like you have to take three steps back for every one. Kyber players are comparatively more competent, but I've been in some...unfortunate matchups before. (As of writing this, I'm in Kyber III, but I've been bouncing between Beskar II~Kyber II for the past two weeks...will I ever make it to Kyber I cries)

-I think they started with a decent batch of characters, and I know this game just came out of beta and the team said they'll be expanding on them! So this isn't really a complaint either. But in the future, I hope they add more female characters (currently only 4 female characters out of 13 total, which feels a little skewed), as well as more support characters, who always feel lacking.

I'd love a few more "popular" iconic Star Wars species to have characters in support. Maybe a Togruta apothecary? A Nautolan water medic? A Pantoran doctor? And personally, I'd love a super buff Twi'lek lady as a tank! Either way, lots of possibilities to look forward to, especially given how much I love the characters so far!

So far, I've been playing on my iPhone and it works pretty smoothly, though I've heard of some Switch users having trouble with lagging/connecting. I think I've only been booted out once, and even when I'm forced to pop out of the app for a moment (last night, I got an Amber alert that paused my screen), I was able to continue playing with barely any pause, which is honesty impressive. I've heard controls are easier on Switch, but I think I've been doing okay on mobile.

Have you tried this game out??

Here's the launch trailer if you're interested, it's Pretty:

And a self plug!

Feel free to add me, I'm Akaz!

I main Skora (Rodian support) and prefer to play her in ranked, but also have Aran Tal (Mando, he's my baby boi), Sentinel (Stormtrooper tank), and Diago (Miraluka sniper) also at max level. Working on leveling up the others in casual mode!

I'm very happy to play casual mode with anyone! (and I play casual mode a lot to level up my less-used characters, and recommend spending some time there for new folks before diving into ranked)

I'm also happy to play ranked!

(but be warned, you'll kinda want to know what you're doing, or they will slaughter you in Kyber)

I might type up a follow up review giving my thoughts on each individual character and maybe some general tips idk

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

I can't quite understand the gameplay loop of Limbus in that it is kind of boring. Gimmicks can be understood and worked around too easily, mirror dungeons are grindy and painful, luxcavations are grindy and painful, thread farming is extremely resource intensive, but also, everything is resource intensive.

I just returned to the game because of this event. I have Multicrack Faust, and while my adoration for her reaches the skies...

I also feel hollow. Like. Why did I even care to begin with? I don't have the Thread to uptie her anymore, which would take at least an entire week to build up.

Also. Even the regular enemy counters in Cantos just become a hollow slog.

I redid an enemy counter in Canto VI for Bonus Lunacy and my god. The paralysis mechanics and huge healthbars are such a pain. What is even more of a pain, is that the solution is to quite simply outclash it.

Clashes in Ruina felt like a deeply engaging back and forth. Here it's either an unstoppable full speed ahead or a slow slog through enemy debuffs and units staggering left and right. Like. I don't fucking get it. It's fun and mechanically engaging for a bit but like. It gets old.

Even with different team comps I have tried out it's like.

Tremor needs an entire team of UT3 Tremor Units.

Sinking is actually pretty solid and can be run in most cases, except for negative coin ID cases. Then the game fucks you over.

Burn is somewhat useful but overall mechanically boring minus the Walpurgis units. Which are held back because they are Walpurgis units.

Rupture is godly in Mirror Dungeons, makes it far less of a slog, while it can barely get going in normal cases. Even in MD again it becomes boring.

Bleed is just. Not too useful. It's nice to have passively but it doesn't do too much.

Poise. I don't have enough units to say anything because here's the thing. Once a Season is over you have to wait fucking months before you can shard any IDs from that season. Season 3 has the best Poise IDs. Captain Ishmael, BL Faust and BL Ishmael, and Bamboo Hatted Meursault... can't get a single fucking one of them.

Charge. Is actually my favorite. Self sufficient, while being noticeably improved by good team comp, and one they have raised the bar with mechanically with both Multicrack IDs which are quite simply, an absolute blast to use.

My thoughts on the statuses are that but like. To what end? To what end? The gameplay loop isn't interesting enough for me to keep grinding out lunacy. The Cantos, while with their incredibly strong moments, require a lot of leveled up IDs, and leveling is a fucking painful experience. The regular enemy encounters, though improved from Canto IV, are still really dumb for the most part.

Really like. I don't get it. I love this game, but to what end? To what end?

[electricsynthesis]

lance - sorry to teenagers in fanon in 2016 but I don’t think lance would listen to the pop hits of the 2010s. I think lance is too hip for that. He is not listening to pop from 100~ years ago. (Or more, nobody can agree on when the show takes place & I think that’s beautiful). lance is listening to the billboard top 100. He’s listening to what people are talking about . I imagine their pop music as very synthetic, almost edm, with loud vocals over top of it. Less bass than we have in our pop music, more tenor. he’s into particular celebrities and while he likes their music, and he says it’s about the music, he’s more into the celebrities really than the music. he’s into his eras version of, like, Britney Spears. Because they’ve gotta have an edge to them. Some controversy. if they’re too squeaky clean he gets bored

hunk - whatever the sci fi future equivalent of melancholy, heavily vocal guitar indie music. the kind of music that’s more poetry than it is really music. Stuff made by underground artists. it’s all emotional, ranging from sappy to comforting to sad. he likes love songs about pining but they make him really emotional . He also likes pop music generally, soft hip hop and r&b. also atmospheric music. He strikes me as the type of nerd to listen to a lot of video game osts because of the sweeping orchestral vibes, but for some reason refuses to just listen to actual classical music. Feels too pretentious but then he just listens to orchestras perform the video game osts anyway so lol

pidge - god’s most annoying electronica. I think 100 years of sci fi future is going to make hyperpop one of the whackiest music genres and pidge is right there with it. She wants pitchy, bit-crushed squealing. she wants electronic shrieking. she wants voices autotuned to the point of nigh unrecognizability. I think she also listens to more normal electronica, which I think is more mainstream in their era. Stuff we would associate with weird youtube electronica is a whole cast genre. She’s really into it. She knows all the bands, all the subgenres, all the specific sounds of each one. Matt finds this so fucking annoying because she plays it out loud and he h a t e s it. After she joins team voltron lance gets to take over matts place here

keith - forgive me for this, but I do think keith listens to what WE would call numetal. But it’s like. Classic metal, to him. Og metal. Like I think he literally listens to linkin park. I’m saying that keith kogane listens to 100 year old music. He heard it all from his crazy ass paranoid conspiracy theorist father, who only uses analogue tech because he’s terrified of the garrison finding out about his fuzzy purple alien long distance wife and his alien hybrid child. so he plays like, breaking Benjamin cds on an old boombox. This is the only kind of music keith likes . He’s ok with modern metal but he prefers what we would call classic metal. he doesn’t like emo music

allura -

So I have really detailed thoughts on what constitutes “music” and how that may be defined for alien cultures in sci fi. I’ve thought about this extensively since I was 14 and the conclusion I’ve come to is that altean music is the most industrial, heavy, absolutely dark fast paced noisemusic ever conceived. Metal grinding against metal. Plates shrieking against each other. Dull thumping on thick glass. String instruments that squeak and squeal. sudden starts and stops. Heavy drums you can feel in your teeth. clanking. whistling. wheezing. All the kinds of noises you hear in altean music. coran prefers more “classical” altean music, which entails more drums and strings (of the shrieking variety). allura prefers the “modern” (of her youth) altean music, their equivalent to pop, which is more industrial & metal grindy.

She excitedly shows the humans some altean music only to find them absolutely repulsed. Just, like, they’re trying to be nice. But when I say industrial I mean like, a collection of noises that we wouldn’t even categorize as music. so they can’t help the just inherent misunderstanding. except keith, he fucking LOVES it. He goes WILD for it. Allura convinces him to actually dance to it and they just flail around wildly.

he tries to show allura the music that he likes but sadly divorced dad rock doesn’t do much for her. But through their & pidge’s combined efforts into the forays of Abrasive Human Music they discover that allura also really likes death metal

[quarrybee]

So I’ll complain here because the discord a mess rn but

CoS Events are progressively getting worse (A essay ™️)

Every time a new event update drops there’s never ending complaints about being too grindy. then the smoke clears, another update drops, more complaining, and that cycle has been snowballing since the Keys event. It almost feels like the devs of this game don’t know how to make an event that doesn’t ask the players to spend hours on busywork. the event missions aren’t even unique in the sense that they’re just the normal region missions. sometimes there’s minigames but most of the time it’s just “grow this, grow that, do these region missions, kill a bunch of tier 5s” (where do you find that many tier fives these types of missions basically requires server hopping)

and that’s not to mention, the rewards for these pointless brain numbing missions are oftentimes so small or unrewarding it feels like your progressing at a snails pace.

I feel like this mostly stems from the Easter 2022 event and the great economy crash that cost. Since then it feels like the devs are worried about over rewarding players who have gotten so used to afking for hours or grinding dull boring tasks for the duration of the event, to the point where they’d (the players) abuse the replayable minigames and get rich in 30 minutes. ever noticed how we’ve never gotten event missions that reward more than 100 shooms at a time since then? so instead the devs overcompensate with low paying, boring tasks that were part of the vanilla game experience to begin with.

I’d say the last fun recode event was the mystery of the keys, because it was unique, at least for cos standards. it introduced new minigames, new event type, new lore, there were cool awards to be earned, and there wasn’t a bunch of creature species to grind for, so at least in the completionist area there was a bit less stress. even then after the key ugcs ran out, the substitutes you could get for completing the missions afterwards were lackluster to say the least, and left anyone who didn’t complete the missions before the 4k ugc ran out were left underwhelmed.

And that’s not even mentioning bugs or vague instructions that left a majority of the playerbase without discord alienated on even how to complete certain tasks. so even their best events have flaws

I’m not a Roblox game developer and even if I did go into detail on how’d I’d personally fix these events we’d be here for another 4 paragraphs, but I’m just really hoping the game breaks out of this terrible continued cycle of progressively grinder events. people have been calling cos p2w more frequently and with these temporary event boosts and event currencies that are disposed off after the event (requiring players to start from scratch when the same event comes around next year no matter how many leftovers you may have), I can’t say their exactly beating the rumors. I really want this game to be good I really do because it’s becoming harder to love with every update for me

[marrowhyena]

Anonymous Coward asked: Have you made any playthroughs with 100% achievemets? I have watched only few of your series but in those you only completed the main story leaving much of the side quests unfinished. Would perfecting the game be too time consuming or grindy for your channel since you seem to explore many games in rather fast pace rather than consentrate on only few games?

I used to be an achievement hunter before I started doing LPs, and let me tell you, achievement lists are bad. There are so many awful achievements that will ruin your fun if you play with them in mind, or they'll require you to do several entire playthroughs and challenge runs at times.

Not to mention that people generally watch LPs to see reactions, so if you're researching and pre-spoiling the game so that you can plan your achievement route, you're ruining that as well.

Generally speaking, perfectly 100%ing games is a tedious process that's made even more tedious when trying to make content out of it. Certain quests or activities just look miserable to do and it's best to just opt out.

Secret hunting is functionally unfilmable because you don't want to clog up your playthrough with eight hours of unedited footage of you wandering around looking for The Thing with nothing of note happening in the process. So you're gonna edit it down, RIGHT? But then you're just left with footage of "I'm gonna look for the thing [cut] I found it." What does the audience get out of the experience really? The chance to say "I guess he found it. I guess he did technically 100% the game, what a journey."

The Yakuza series is one of the most brutal examples for completionists because I'll spent 50 hours playing the entire main story and every side story in most of them, but then there's the pocket racing campaign, the bowling campaign, the batting cage campaign, the cabaret club, the hunting campaign, the fishing campaign, and don't forget to finish the entire menu of every restaurant and unlock the entire skill tree-

It's just not worth it. It's how you make bad videos, as you get increasingly bored with the game, forced to now play all of the parts that you'd been previously eating around because they seemed like a pain in the ass. And every time you make a playthrough longer, there's opportunity cost. That's days of the schedule that could be going to a new game instead of trying to wring the juices out of this already long playthrough that your own audience already stopped watching.

But the funny thing about this question is that I'm usually seen as the completionist guy. So many people just rush the main story as fast as possible to get to the next game, whereas I spend mountains of time in every playthrough doing side content. I'm the guy who specifically takes his time and often takes 50% longer to beat a game than HowLongToBeat suggests.

But true completionism? Shit's folly.

If anything, I sometimes 100% a game after the series is over, off camera, with the game muted and podcasts or video essays playing in the background. That's what I did for Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding. I plat'd them both. But that wasn't exciting or interesting gameplay, it was life-filler. It was downtime busywork, unfit for a show. Me grinding through it while half paying attention was the intended experience, and I should never make videos about those parts of games.

[Smile or comment on the answer here](https://retrospring.net/@Boring_Keith/a/112661525969055712)

[kozykricket]

so recently i tried calamity mod out, and... ive gotta say, i respect it for existing, but it definitely hones in on mostly the bosses and. well, i appreciate terraria for more than just the bosses. if you asked me when i first played terraria, i'd have said yeah the boss fights are the best part definitely, and i want more of that but... as ive grown, and as the game has grown -- and as i have thought more about what makes me like games, and as terraria has felt more complete than ever with 1.4 and such ...well, ill just say i know that what makes me love terraria is Everything that it is, and... i think calamity doesn't really go into expanding on everything. it feels like it kinda wants me to rush past a lot of vanilla things, but... taking my time earlygame is something i kinda appreciate. i know a lot of people shit on terraria for it being Grindy and RNG as hell for certain things, but am i crazy for believing that thats part of the charm? the exploration feels like... the same sense of doing a run in a roguelike. you arent always gonna find what you want, but its still... exciting! to find things! i know i have a few posts worth of "what i disagree with in terms of how calamity mod designs itself" but im just going to focus on how it ... tiktokifies terraria? in this post like, okay. from least egregious to most egregious, calamity:

Reduces the respawn time

Increases base mining speed

Increases base movement speed and capabilities

Gives a starter bag with tons of really nice early game goodies (why? thats just skipping like. 10 minutes of fun for no reason?)

Puts a giant structure above spawn with free planter boxes and all the herb seeds in a chest (also, you can just farm blood moons for making any potion. with blood orbs. oh no its post skeletron that certainly makes a huge difference) (I really don't get why people use alchemistnpc when calamity makes it insanely easy to get potions on its own)

Lets you craft a lot of accessories, from radars to blizzards in bottles.

Makes boss summons repeatably useable* (and notably, their FIRST boss has a bag within a bag, that gives you tons of fishing related items, without having to engage with the angler, so i guess forget the fishing gameplay loop. idc if you think its boring, because i do too. its still just completely moving the gameplay over to fighting a boss which is weird)

so overall i can tell calamity like, wants you to get moving to the later stuff. i get that; it has a LONG progression, and ... they rightfully want to get you moved towards the stuff that they've put the most effort into: the bosses. which i will admit are really fun and really cool, and *i actually do understand why they make boss summons re-usable in calamity, because of the increased difficulty of bosses.* plus theres still the fact you're gonna end up having to make new potions for every new attempt... at least, every retry when you're at the stage where you cant just sweep the floor with the boss. but uhm, that goes to my point on potions being pisseasy. its fine that theres free herb seeds, im fine with that really, because its not like they're that hard to get. you can get all the herb seeds in herb bags in the first 10 minutes. or just by exploring. it just really feels like ... it ADDS to the list of small but subtle little things where calamity hands me things that id normally go adventuring for. like what even is there left for me to adventure for wtf... i was thinking oh i'd really like a blizzard in a bottle and ice boomerang, but instead of needing to explore and spelunk for chests (which is EASY anyways in calamity with the increased mining speed and free spelunker potions) they just ... let me craft both of those?? using just some BLOCKS from the snow biome?? why. do you want me to engage with *anything* that isnt killing stuff, game?? and yknow the increased mining speed is cool, hell even FTW in vanilla does that, but it feels like even less reason to use mining potions and ... less incentive to go on a fun journey for the ancient chisel through the unique challenge of the underground desert. again, yes, its something that can be quite fast in vanilla. you can get hermes boots really easily if you're lucky, and so i understand..?? why people would want to just be able to craft hermes boots; to be able to have a consistent way to get them, instead of going on that gold-chest-gamble. but like... i like that part of the game! i like the early game finding of stuff. and hell sometimes later in the game ill decide hm i wanna go get this early game thing i never got because its for a crafting tree for this big accessory im making. but in calamity its just "ah dw you have all the materials for it now anyways" heck even FISHING is like. yknow, as i said, easier in calamity due to the desert scourge dropping potions for it and such, and its an alternative way to get stuff like a cloud in a bottle or an aglet, or even something like feral claws. so its something easier by calamity, but its also meaningless because you can craft so many things you'd normally either adventure or fish for so all in all, i understand that some people just wanna play terraria for the boss fights, and they dont really care too much for the interludes of roguelike-vibes-exploration between the bosses where you go on RNG hunts and take some time preparing via fishing, but. well i appreciate them darnit oh also its really funny calamity just, makes the magic mirror faster. like. is that even necessary. the base movement speed increase i think is weird when food buffs and stuff like magiluminesence exists. or yknow, boots. especially considering you can just craft the boots. if they want to make sure the player just inherently has more to work off of, then. i dunno, buff the swiftness potion? make a new potion? or make a new accessory? and ive heard they nerf a lot of vanilla things despite the fact that they dont even compete that hard with the calamity stuff. so... yeah, calamity makes some weird decisions. but also, i don't hate the mod for existing; in fact, im glad it exists. its an entirely different experience and yknow what? its valid for it to exist, and it... helps keep the people who want a game like calamity ... content, yknow? keeps them happy.

[asleepinawell]

Fallen London: Ambitions

I've finished 3/4 ambitions now and am almost done with the fourth so I wanted to jot down my thoughts on each. I split it into opinions on story and mechanics for each. The tl;dr version is I enjoyed all the stories but had a range of opinions on the mechanics

some spoilers below

Note that I tried not to use the wiki guides too much while doing these (i wouldn't check what I'd need for upcoming steps, but i would look up how to find resources for the current step if i don't know). If I had I might have had less issues with some, but I don't think they should be judged on the assumption that someone is reading ahead on a guide

Listed in the order I completed them.

Light Fingers

Story: this ambition was Weird. really Weird. I mean that in a good way. I knew from glancing at the spoiler-free picking an ambition guide on the wiki that it was not actually about a heist and had an early twist that got really dark really fast. It contained two of the biggest NOPES for me (getting buried alive and pregnancy body horror) and despite that I had a great time with it. Loved the ending. Loved the Frank and Jasper comedy duo bit. Doing psychological damage to mr fires is my favorite hobby. Also loved the story tie-in at station viii which made me yell

Mechanics: This was my first ambition and I was kind of all over the place in fallen london doing all the things at once, so my memory of this is kinda vague. I don't remember having an awful grind or running into a wall outside of needing to level my stats a little more. It might be rose tinted nostalgia glasses but this felt like the easiest ambition to me and in a good way where it was paced out well.

Bag A Legend

Story: The story was really straight-forward, a complete 180 from LF. I know people consider Heart's Desire to be the more light hearted one, but to me this was the pure fun one. Kind of in a bloodborne way. Big fan of Sinning Jenny and April. Enjoyed the masters lore. Loved feral Veils and getting to make it a mlp. Just a good time all around.

Mechanics: This one went really fast. I'm not sure if it's actually shorter than the others or if I just sped along, but I didn't run into any major roadblocks that annoyed me. There's a big grind x3 near the end, but because it was split into three parts with an important story event between each I didn't mind so much. Also I could tell it was the conclusion so I was ready to work for my ending.

Nemesis

Story: I just finished this one so I may still be riding the high of that, but I think this was my favorite story of the bunch. Especially the whole ending sequence with Beggar's Wake. 10/10, loved it. I appreciated that it tied into the lore of the bazaar and the masters and gave some juicy tidbits on that.

Mechanics: oh, knifegate my beloathed. so I actually started nemesis on my seeking alt, got to knifegate and was like what the actual fuck this is worse than seeking and gave up. I made a new alt who I was committed to basically not playing at all for months to do the echo grind on and then halfway through that they nerfed knifegate. since I then suddenly had enough echoes it's hard for me to say if the nerf really made it more palatable. I know it's a grindy game but I don't think locking people into hitting one button over and over for actual real months for what isn't even the last hurdle in the ambition is a good choice. if it had been my first ambition I might have quit the game. if the grind had been split up the way it was in bag a legend and hadn't been just for echoes (which is so boring) it might not have been as infuriating.

the other thing that got me early on was the iron republic safe pass. if you don't look it up, there's no great way to know how to do it, and even if you find out you need counting the days unless you know to choose the bohemians as your closest to and look up all the places to get counting the days it'll take forever. if you choose the bohemians it goes extremely fast. i don't think that tying in that much of a huge time difference to what faction you choose for an ambition makes a lot of sense, especially when the whole counting the days thing is pretty confusing for a new player

so overall yeah, could use a few tweaks still in my opinion

Heart's Desire

Story: I haven't quite finished this yet, but I'm very close. As such I won't pass final judgment on it, but I'll say I enjoyed getting to meet a wide cast of notable npcs and learning more about them and how wacky it was at the start with the monkey. the boat trip through parabola also stands out as a great part. Could use more Virginia

Mechanics: At the start of this one I thought it was going pretty well, but then. There are a lot of pain points and they hit one after another. Several steps rely on drawing specific cards and like yes, I get it, it's about card games, but that didn't translate well to churning through the deck for weeks for one stupid card. multiple times. next was the 5 card lodgings requirement that dropped out of nowhere. since i got there in February i couldn't do it at sackmas unless i wanted to wait an actual year and the grind to get it starting from nothing was just painful. this is also not near the end of the ambition so it's not a final hurdle or something

shortly after the lodgings grind you find out you need 15 levels of a dream. on my main I didn't get 15 levels of a dream until I'd finished the railway. this alt had some-ish but not nearly enough. so that was another horrible lengthy opportunity deck rng grind. while you can theoretically do some other things while waiting for a card, it does limit you to london (unless you want to let your deck cap and miss chances to get it) and ducking in and out of stories or the lab constantly gets old really fast. so i mostly stopped playing other than for clicking through the deck. at this point I'd lost a lot of interest in the story because it kept being interrupted by huge delays

I am now up to the train with other players part and there's one item i need that there's no good way to work for other than hoping i can get rare successes on some rolls 5x (have not gotten one after two days straight) or wait for the rat market to have what i need if it even still has it after the overhaul. (i did find out there is one other way which requires a ton of prep work but at least there's no rng element). mostly I'm just ready for it to be over at this point which is sad because the story, when i can get to it, is fun

so yeah, 0/10 on mechanics for this one, especially when compared to the others

to put it another way: i started bag a legend and hearts desire at the same time, both on brand new characters. i finished bag a legend months ago. nemesis i started months after those two and it's now done and hearts desire is still grinding on. i started seeking shortly before this and finished that already as well

So yeah, final assessment is great stories all around, nemesis mechanics could have been better, and not a fan at all of hearts desire mechanics

[roxannarambles]

Finally finished playing Legends: Arceus-- the main storyline, at least, I have not completed the full Dex, but I did everything else. Some thoughts below.

So, there's a lot this game has going for it. There are lots of lovely natural environments to run around in and explore, and the pokemon really do feel integrated into a complete world, full of personality and ways of interacting with them you just don't get in other games. The controls feel good, the mounts are very fun to use, the aesthetic is on point, and the story's pretty fun. Crafting is a neat addition to the game, there's plenty of side-quests, and there's some interesting new battle mechanics. Overall, they switch things up from the mainline games and try a lot of new things, which I do commend them for.

But, um. Here's the thing. I really hate the gameplay, for the most part. Which is why I bought the game and really, really wanted to enjoy it, and I tried several times to play through, but each time I got so intensely bored I just couldn't go through with it. Don't get me wrong, catching pokemon and using berries and stun items and other stuff feels good, and it feels fun. For like, the first hour. But you have to keep doing it.

Over and over and over.

I just don't enjoy catching a billion pokemon and grinding out other research tasks, like beating up on wild pokemon in various ways, using a specific move a certain number of times, etc. It's so mindless and dull and grindy and boring. You know how PokemonGo is mostly just . . . catching pokemon? Yeah. That gets old, I hate that. I can see how it's just chill and relaxing for some people, but it just isn't for me. I did my damned best to get into it, I promise, but I never did. It was a slog the whole way.

I tried to make it more interesting to me by doing a "bug only challenge." I was only allowed to catch and use bug types, the whole game. (The exceptions are plot-required catches: namely, the Tutorial pokemon and a Dusknoir at some point in the main storyline) And it . . . was sorta nice, I guess? But it didn't do much to make it more fun to me. In some ways it made it even more of a slog since it's harder to earn Star Ranks when you're severely limiting the species you catch. Still, I'm kinda proud I was able to do it, I guess?

Trainer battles in the game are frustrating, too, due to their rarity. You do have battles in the game, and new battle mechanics to try out, too, which gives you a desire to have battles-- especially since it can break up the monotonous research tasks. However, battles are so incredibly rare, and typically incredibly, incredibly easy and are over in almost an instant. You never get to really use the pokemon you've trained. And I get it, the emphasis of the game is research, not battling, since battling is still in its infancy in this era. It still feels frustrating though. I craved battles.

I didn't get to ever feel attached to my team, either. Since most of the game involves research tasks, a lot of those tasks involve battling against wild pokemon. If I used my main team for all that, they'd get way overlevelled in a hurry. So I was always using different individuals. I hardly ever saw my main team, so I did not get the chance to bond with them emotionally-- especially since we rarely had trainer battles anyway.

I didn't feel attached to most of the characters in the game either, to be frank. This isn't any fault of the writing, I actually think the writing was very strong in this game, this is more of just a personal preference. The Pokemon Professor is fine enough, but I never got over the disgusting pube-hair look he has going on his face (I am allowed to dislike characters for shallow reasons, okay). Rei was okay, but I certainly didn't feel fond over him. The leaders of the Pearl and Diamond clans were okay I guess, but the 'arguments' about time and space were so fucking stupid and took up most their screen time, so it kind of ruins them. I just, I dunno, I didn't feel strongly about any of them.

Except for Volo. I always liked him. (The moment I saw him I hoped he was a butch lesbian and got all excited. When I found out he was a dude I was a bit disappointed but oh well, he's still pretty) He was friendly and charismatic and I appreciated his curiosity and his wanderer's spirit.

It's a shame I didn't play and finish the game when I first bought it, because then I might not have been spoiled to Volo's little twist at the end. But, finding out Volo's heavy involvement in the game and the twist at the end was what motivated me to bother finishing the game, so. There's that. I really don't think anything else would have motivated me, because the gameplay was just such a slog for me.

I am glad I bothered to finish the main story, though. It was interesting. I do love the premise of people being very wary and frightened of pokemon and exploring that kind of world. Portraying pokemon in a scarier role was a bold move for the franchise and I love them exploring that side. I LOVE pokemon chasing after you and attacking you directly and the 'alpha' pokemon mechanic and the spookiness of it all. And the story is honestly a neat one. The idea of MC being displaced in time and space and having to work for their room and board has a cozy-survival feel to it, and the deep mistrust of everyone and slowly earning their respect was interesting. Although I did feel actively annoyed that no matter how much work I did, and how many requests I fulfilled, people still often treated me with mistrust. But I think that was the point, to be honest!

When you quell the final Noble and the sky goes boom, that's when things get truly fun, though. I love that Kamado turns on you, which was not too surprising since he'd been one of the ones who really banged on and on about mistrusting you the most. I LOVE the short scene of showing you being walked out of the village as you're banned. I LOVED the feeling of being suddenly on your own, and I LOVE that both Pearl and Diamond clans turned their backs on you so that they wouldn't risk war with Galaxy. And who is there when you have no one else to turn to, alone in the wilderness, when you need a friend the most?

Volo.

He brings you to Cogita, where she fulfills the heavy burden of Exposition Lady. The years of bearing that burden of Exposition have turned her tired and a little snippy, apparently (in truth she's only snippy with Volo, and I think it's because she senses a bad aura, but from an innocent standpoint it seems needlessly snippy, since Volo's Mask is a genuinely nice guy and he's given a nearly flawless performance). I don't know if Cogita was even needed for the story, since Volo's specialty is myth research and he could have easily given us that exposition and also given us a neutral ground to shelter at while the other clans turned their backs on us. But whatever, they wanted a Cynthia ancestor, I can understand that. Dang her house was pretty to look at, and the music there was great. They really put effort into that part.

And then you go and forge the red chain and climb the mountain and . . . potato guy? Why are you here? Oh, he's randomly a ninja. Actually, that part was hilarious and I loved it, I had a grudge against Beni the ENTIRE game because he didn't want to serve me his stupid mochi, so I was so excited to kick his ass. And the extra lore was nice, not to mention the extremely rare chance to have a battle. Anyway, after that, you battle the boss and then take care of the scary Legendary pokemon and all that jazz, and the story . . . ends. Rather abruptly, to be honest. It felt a bit sudden, as if Act 2 was cut a little short. I think it's because the post-game is still what you'd call the main story. Post-game content normally is extra, bonus stuff, but man, if you skip the post-game plot in Arceus, you'll be missing a whole chunk of actual story. Tbh I think they shouldn't have rolled credits 'til the end of the Volo battle, but that's nitpicking. Besides, it amuses me to think some people stopped after the credits and never learned the truth about Volo, which is just a hilarious thought.

Act 3 takes place after a festival celebrating the fact MC saved the world and the Diamond and Pearl clans no longer need to fight (sadly, we don't get to see the festival though!! other than a tiny photo in the credits!) It's pretty short and mostly running around doing errands involving facing off against legendaries and mythicals; the most satisfying errand was a rematch with Kamado because it was a trainer battle aaaaaa!! So few of those. And then we climb the mountain again because Volo, um, really wants to meet the creator's 'unwanted child' for some reason . . . sounds like a good idea right??

The battle with him was fun. Having Cynthia's banger theme was hype, didn't expect it. I was doing the bug challenge run, my team was levels ~60-65, and I beat him on my first go, down to my last pokemon, Heracross on full health.

And then he brings out Giratina without letting me heal. Ahaha, uhhm.

Thankfully I had a lot of Max Revives stuffed in my bag which I FINALLY had a use for. The second phase for Giratina was not expected, so that was a fun surprise, but I scraped by on a few more max revives and careful juggling, and we won. (I dunno what happens once you meet Arceus itself, because I think I need to 100% the Dex for that to happen, but presumably our character can finally return home.)

Was it a good game? Yes, objectively speaking, definitely. I think Legends: Arceus was a very strong game. The writing was very good, and that's a precious rarity in Pokemon games. The world itself was carefully designed, polished, pretty, and felt like truly exploring nature and encountering pokemon, in a unique and refreshing way. The gameplay tried something very new and it generally implemented its intentions very well-- it felt fun to control the character, to throw pokeballs, to craft and collect items, to use mounts, and go up against the Nobles. The story and the universe cast pokemon in an exciting new perspective.

It's just a shame that a million grindy research tasks are so utterly boring to carry out, because the main thrust of the game and what you spend the most time on just plain sucked for me to do. So much so, that I did not enjoy most of my experience playing this game. But oh well, what can you do?

[angevon]

Stardew Mods

Here are my thoughts on the Stardew Valley mods I tried in my most recent game. To be fair, the game I used them in only got to Fall 20th or so of year 1 before I got bored and decided I want to maybe restart with a different loadout, haha.

The good:

All professions - I wanted to use Skill Prestige mod (which lets you "reset" your skill exp to go back and get all skills, sounds great for a long term game) but at the time of starting the game, it wasn't quite ready for 1.6, so I went with this instead and have no regrets. Less grindy than Prestige would've been anyway! I don't think I have it in me to keep to the same game for such a long term anyway.

Animal Observer - speech bubble above the animals so you know if they've been petted and/or are readying up a resource.

Auto Catch, AutoFillPetBowl, AutoGate, Crop Watering Bubbles, passable crops - self explanatory

Better Shipping Bin - the shipping bin acts as a chest and you can pull things out of it.

Canon-friendly Dialogue Expansion - adds more npc interactions with each other, pretty cute from what I saw.

Chests Anywhere - it's going to be hard to play on console without this. Lets you access all your chests whenever, wherever. Sure it's cheaty but this game is LONG and I don't have as much free time irl as I used to.

Community Center Helper - when you hover over a community center bundle item, it gives a note on where/when to find the item. I found this most useful for the fishing ones so I don't have to wiki when a fish is around.

Cornucopia - adds more crops. My favorite part of the game is farming so this is a no-brainer hehe. Will be great when they add recipes using them, but not necessary since tbh I was never into cooking.

Difficulty Socializing - mod to gain fewer or more social points from social aspects. I set everything to 50% since in the Switch game I maxed everyone out super fast and was kinda disappointed haha.

Gunther Tells You - has Gunther tell you the description of donations.

Forage of Ferngill - has a bunch of different modules and I love the new flowers! but, the flower press is a little broken and I got rich way quick on them 😂 but it's true flowers DID need a boost over crops...

Fourteen Heart Events for All - No Marriage Required - self explanatory. Works with Platonic Friendships too!

Happy Fish Jump - makes fish jump out of the water sometimes.

Harvest With Scythe - also has a Harvest With Sword option. love swinging my sword and having crops fly out of the field.

Lasting Conversation Topics - helps you not miss any topical dialogue just because you missed talking to someone on the event day.

Platonic Partners and Friendships - if I don't decide to get married in the game, there is always this

Pokémon Wonder Mail - it's a newsletter you get in the mail about Pokémon. supposed to be used alongside the other Pokémon mods.

Quest Time Limits - lets you change the quest time limits

ReportMobCounts - notifies you how many of each enemy is on a map. Great for monster farming.

Ridgeside Village - this one adds a whole new village to visit, with a whole bunch of new NPCs to befriend. Does a pretty good job of being canon-compliant. Downside: there's some rich snobby NPCs that feel out of place.

RobinIsSingle - look, I wanted to marry her on the Switch. Well, now on PC I can! sorry not sorry Demetrius.

Self-Serve - use a store regardless of NPC being there

TimeSpeed - I'm using it to stop time indoors like in Harvest Moon games.

Traveling Skill - the more you walk, the faster you go. Who needs a horse?

Visible Artifact Spots - the dig spots now have a bubble

Visible Fish - this one shows fish in the water. However, it's just their static icon image in the water so they look very... immobile... still cute anyway.

Wild Animals - adds more wild animals in the background, very cute.

Wild Flowers Reimagined - flowers grow in the grass sometimes

The going away:

East Scarp - kinda like Ridgeside Village, adds a new village zone, but it's not quite polished yet. It's more modular where you can pick and choose which NPC modules you'd like to add, but if you don't get most of them, the village feels empty. In my game there was an entire empty map I had to walk through to get there, so I kinda didn't bother half the time 😪I did like Sen at least!

Fireworks Festival - it's cute but uses a lot of assets from the winter night festival, but comes before the winter festival, just felt weird.

Fish of Stardew - more fish is a great idea but I found they got in the way when I was trying to fish for bundle fish. Also, I think it adds an algae rock item that, when combined with the happy fish jump mod, causes algae to jump out of the water. Hilarious but immersion breaking!

NPC Jasper - just not feeling it!

Pokemania - adds Pokémon to the game. Mostly sprite replacers but cute. I'll be removing Pokemania because the dog/cat evolution is buggy which breaks immersion (it unevolves the next day...?). Also adds Pokémon cries that are way too loud.

Resource Chickens - This adds chickens that lay eggs you can convert into resources like Coal, Fiber, etc. Conceptually cool! I thought they'd be useful but I found I didn't end up needing them at all.

Stardew Valley Expanded - I gave this an honest try since it's highly recommended, but it just changed too much in Pelican Town. Maybe in a future playthrough I'll come back to this. Also, it ALSO added a rich family, what is with these modders and adding rich npcs?

Carry Your Pet - nothing wrong with it, I just wasn't using it at all.

Mods I'll keep but didn't really use or notice:

Adventurer's Guild Expanded - I'm not a deep dungeon kinda person tbh but was hoping this might make it feel more worth it to go into the mines, etc. Honestly didn't notice anything it added.

Billboard Anywhere - I found by habit I checked the board manually anyway. In my defense, I play on controller and the menu-ing on controller is a pain. I couldn't find how to reach the billboard from the menu without resorting to using the mouse.

Dwarf Expansion - never got all the dwarf scrolls 😂

Event Lookup - you can use this to see what cutscenes you have available to see. I didn't use it, but I figure it'll be useful more towards later in the game when friendship is maxed for most npcs.

Gift Decline - makes it so spamming the same gift isn't effective. I didn't actually gift much in this playthrough so this didn't have any effect.

Horse Overhaul - supposed to make the horse able to fit through areas it can't in vanilla, but I never got the horse.

Junimatic - gives Junimos more things to help with. I just didn't get far enough to use it.

Let Me Shop - lets you use Clint's shop still when he's upgrading a tool

Log Menu - adds a menu to access that shows most latest dialogue, including cutscene dialogue. Useful if you skip through something on accident like I do.

Luck Skill - one of those, does it work, or doesn't it? I can't tell!

PolyCarts - adds a bunch of minecarts but they still gotta be unlocked by community center bundle.

SkullCavernElevator - didn't get that far either!

Yet Another Cooking Skill - I'm not into cooking but I'm trying to change that.

[gurokichi]

I live in a small city in a farming community, most people around here have pets! We definitely have more than most though, we are just big animal lovers! Awe, I'm so sorry to hear that they aren't keen on the idea of you keeping pets, they truly are amazing! I love rats so much, they make such great little friends, I hope you get some ratties one day <3

Doll will definitely have to check out both Stardew and Fields of Mistria once it gets its computer!!! I also have so much freetime on my hands right now,,, does Bon not go to school? Be free to DM me, Bon already knows who Dolly is (III╥_╥⁠)

In Minecraft, I really like the grindy stuff (chopping down trees, mining), as well as building!!! Oftentimes, I'll put a bunch of effort into the outside of my house, and the inside is an organized disaster! In the Sims usually I build, I rather build houses in the Sims than play with the Sim,,, usually I will build a Sim or a family, then create a house for them! I feel like actually playing a household in the Sims can get very repetitive, though, and it just doesn't seem to keep my attention for as long as building or creating a Sim/Family! My recent favorite games to play on roblox have been, Stop it Slender, Doors, and Hide and Seek! Slow Damage and Sweet Pool are both BL Visual Novel games made by the Company Nitro+CHiRAL. They both contain darker topics and themes, but I know that at least SD is absolutely amazing. I don't know much about Sweet Pool tbh, other than there is gore and cannibalism, but I'm quite set on playing it eventually! Slow Damage I just desperately want to play myself, I've watched about halfway through a playthrough of SD and read the manga, which covers the first (Fraise) chapter of SD!

-Doll 🎀

That sounds like such a lovely place to live! I'd kill to live somewhere like that. Ehehe, thank you for the kind words. Rats are just adorable and so intelligent too! I also hope I'll be able to get some one day.

Ah, how come you have a lot of free time? School's started up already for most people (/nf). I don't go to school, I have pretty bad agoraphobia, and so I just never got the courage to return to going after schools opened up again. You can see in my pinned that I identify with the term "hiki(komori)neet" because of that. ...I hope that doesn't make you think less of me. I appreciate the offer to DM you, and I'll keep it in mind. I get nervous pretty easily, so it might take me a little bit, ahah.

I also enjoy the Minecraft grind! Building in both Minecraft and the Sims is fun. I definitely agree with you that actually playing households can get boring quickly. I love the customization aspects of the Sims much more. I haven't heard of Stop It Slender in awhile; that's an olddd game. It used to be one of my favorites to play, though! Doors is fun; you might like Pressure too if you haven't tried that. It's similar to Doors. Speaking of doors, I still need to play floor 2... waiting for my friends to play with me. I'll be sure to check those two visual novels out and see if they'd be something I'd enjoy playing for my doll. They seem interesting!

You sent an ask off anon again, silly doll. I'll answer that one here too.

Doll will be sure to make the bracelet tonight or tomorrow and will definitely show you!!! So happy Bon liked my idea! (⁄ ⁄>⁄ ▽ ⁄<⁄ ⁄) 💕 Eep! -Doll

I can't wait to see it! You can either send it to me in DMs or send an ask containing the image. If you send an ask, I won't post it unless you specify wanting me to... although you do need to go off anon to put images in asks. Probably best you stick to DMs if you don't want to expose your blog.

[anonymous-harpy]

Don’t mind me, just asking a quick question while I go through my boring shift.

Upon discovering you have played Yokai Watch, I was curious, do you remember who your main team was?

Jabanyan? Komasan annnnnddd I cannot remember but I know I put Shyoganyan on my last team after I could grab him

The others? I couldn't tell you without looking at the entire roster and I only remember them three because they had strong personalities/I have figures of the first two and Shyoganyan was a legendary that was absolutely busted when grinding the Oni oger fights (I love brute forcing tough bosses with maxed on parties. Probably why I love grindy JRPGS more than western RPGS)

I may have had Shiro on there and that's really all I could tell you. I got every Yokai(even Pokemon didn't torment me in completing my dex as badly as Yokai watch did holyshit) too except I think Pandanoko because that one required going around other human persons and I'm allergic to humans

[elendsessor]

no fusion run update part nightmare fly has been swatted

i have to admit this took a great number of tries, a lot of grinding, and a lot of skill manipulation. i was thinking “oh i’m pretty overleveled so beelzebub won’t be as bad as usual-”

WRONG. WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS.

i did make sure to get magma axis ahead of time and avenge for good measure but there were two major problems:

one, only qing long had makakaja, and he doesn’t null/reflect dark attacks.

two, nobody on my team had debilitate.

yes loa can learn it but that would take even more grinding and i didn’t want to do that since it’s not really how i like going through the labyrinth or a lot of the game.

quick side tangent and explanation since i’m sure someone may ask: yes the grinding dlc exists but i don’t want to get paid dlc for something so minor and game breaking. only thing i have is merciful difficulty (don’t remember if that’s dlc or not i’ve had that option available since i got nocturne) and even then i only used it for grinding. scout’s honor, i’m doing major fights on hard mode and decided bc i’m worried about the possibility of being too op i would be running from a majority of fights (on normal of course) unless it’s a demon i want to recruit. if i end up needing to do some passive leveling i switch back to hard. i genuinely hate merciful difficulty but considering how grindy nocturne can be it was somewhat necessary to level my demons without taking an eternity. i don’t like how merciful is game journalist mode, i don’t like how much of a joke boss encounters are with it, etc etc. and trust me playing a save file with only merciful difficulty was so boring.

that’s also why i genuinely hate the grinding dlc aside from being paid when it should’ve been in base nocturne hd, and why i made some pretty big decisions that don’t min-max demifiend. part of the fun of nocturne is overcoming the bosses since they’re some of the hardest in the series and let’s be real being owned by at least one is a right of passage. if you’re extremely overleveled before facing bosses like matador that are infamous for forcing you to learn the game, it takes you out of the experience. that’s part of why i’m nerfing myself just in case. (i’m not going to be using freikugel as soon as it’s available but depending on how lucifer goes (i’m playing chronicle so he has diarahan oh joy) i may end up using it if absolutely necessary. divine shot’s cooler anyways sorry not sorry.) since i have to do some grinding for demon skills bc no fusion, there’s a very real chance i may get too op, and i’d rather not. also fun builds are better than the meta builds again sorry not sorry.

this all being said, i did hit a roadblock. the best way to deal with the beel in any game he’s in (where the skill is available) is to have at least one party member with debilitate. nocturne’s debuff skills like war cry and fog breath are pretty busted, but it would be too risky to use taunt without a dekaja to follow up, and mp preservation is really big in fights where the enemy can remove buffs/debuffs, so yeah debilitate is huge on a lot of levels. unfortunately despite it working in the original ps2 versions of nocturne, hd fixed a lot of ai bugs including certain ways to trick it into never removing buffs/debuffs.

this was my first true mandatory skill mutation fest.

and after several resets, i got debilitate on my star player.

also got it on gogmagog just in case so it turned into a roughly two hour endeavor of chaining. that beautiful 3% mutation chance pulled through eventually. i didn’t expect to use gogmagog given his fire weakness and i couldn’t remember if beel has any fire moves but he was an emergency switch in if i ran out of great chakras.

now you may be wondering why qing long is ko’d when he was obviously used despite not a good fit for beel and that’s because he again managed to pull through. beel will not remove buffs or debuffs in the first phase nor use death flies early on, so i sped through with a few makakajas before sacrificing him for a monke switch. funny monke kept buffing defense and evasion to make some attacks not as powerful especially since titania can’t deal with physical moves especially if they’re powered by focus.

after a few tries i finally got a winning run where the ai forgot to do some crucial dekajas and dekundas, spammed death flies which was doing nothing, and ultimately magma axis secured the kill. it was long. beel is built like a tank. probably would’ve made him run out of mp eventually given how long it took. but this was the first hurdle since thor that really got me and it served as a nice palette cleanser. once you play through nocturne once or twice, most bosses end up being pretty easy, but the labyrinth of amala always finds a way to destroy your self worth and remind you what game you’re playing, and i think that’s why i’m beginning to appreciate it more.

one more side note but beelzebub has the best battle theme in the game just saying it’s a banger and so unique i love it

[lilacs-and-lavenders]

Experimenting with different games to see which ones interest me. I got SF6 and it's fun watching CPU Kimberly beat up pl1. Love all the colors. It's nice seeing something different for a change on my TV screen. Refreshing even looking at something that isn't laced with terrible memories. 👏🏽

Having a bit of a difficult time staying in FF, though. Yes I am going to be playing when the DT expansion releases but I don't know how often. I'm just too annoyed by the other players when I log in. They don't really bother me at all but...idk...I guess all of my bad memories of the toxic fake friends I met ruined the overall atmosphere and feel of the game for me as well as my view of people as a whole so I have a love/hate relationship with it. Affwcted me more than I thought. Traumatic memories. Ugh. I love seeing my WoL though but I cant bring myself to log in much which is why I created them in Sims 4. It also gets incredibly lonely since no one really talks to each other especially if you aren't in their friend group/clique. And I am obviously not good at making friends despite my best efforts. They always end the same. Trauma. Trauma. And more trauma. I honestly don't know what I was expecting from an MMO. I got a little to ambitious with wanting to branch out try new things. 😅 I'm going to stick around to the very end of the game whenever that is ofcourse. I obviously can't quit because of my houses which sucks because I am losing all drive to play it. BUT whenever it does finally end, goodbye FFXIV. I'm dipping out. Deuces.✌🏼

I think I am just wanting something new. A change of pace. But it is so hard to find games that interest me and counter my low attention span. I mostly like idle games now and mobile stuff. I love Sims 4 despite it's flaws but do wish that it still had a lot of the elements that Sims 3 did like cars and an open world. They also really need to optimize it because the latency issues are a pain in the ass. 😭

I have a bunch of other games on backlog that I might try out. I don't have the patience for long-winded storylines anymore let alone long games like the new AC Creeds bleh. I don't like overly grinding stuff, either. And I don't want anything that's an online multiplayer. Just...no. FF drained me.🤦🏽‍♀️

I do have other hobbies like writing, drawing, and photography. We'll photography on my phone since I don't have a professional camera. Also blogging obviously. I've changed blogs so many times on here. 🤣

tldr: MMOs are not for me and most of the FF players drained me and killed the game for me due to their toxicity and need to want to manipulate and take advantage of others. It's sad. Looking for newer games to play that strike my fancy and keep my attention. I love idle games and stuff like Sims 4. Well...games that allow me to design my own character. I don't like overly long games and grindy gameplay. Too stressful and draining. Have other hobbies, too. I get bored of things easily.

Oh! I wanted to add this note in, too. On the days when I don't play. I feel so much more relaxed. So that speaks volumes there. I'll stick with my single player games. They're so chill now. 😎❤️

[mirukutchi]

My sumikko water :3

It has an interchangeable faceplate :3

Anyway here r my thoughts, having had it for so long and running a few times :3

Its very grindy, like you gotta feed them and pet them A LOT to fill their meters(unreasonably so) and anyone who has one will tell you that lol.

The games are very cute and fun, the scenes and pictures you can unlock are super adorable, and sumikko characters are vv cute so honestly my disposition towards it is generally positive! But i can def see others not liking it, as its less casual and rather demanding. It doesnt beep when it needs attention but you have to check them a lot to keep them from becoming upset or even running away!(they are super easy to get back tho)

I love love love the gimmick of this pet, i love the underwater feature and the way it knows its spatial orientation! Hehe here are the sumikkos hanging out in nekos room!

All my sumikkos are at full meters, but its so damn tedious to do that, so its a bit of a less casual experience. It can even be boring haha

Also they dont lose their meters too fast, but its a pain to fill them from empty so its more convenient to just fill them a little periodically throughout the day