Ruining It For Everyone Else Since 2004
It’s been an eternity and a half since I last touched Freedom Planet, or so it feels like. I remember getting stuck on a boss fight and then just buggering off onto the next thing(s). This time I used a little patience and overcame a couple boss battles. 🙂 Now I’ll have to do it again in Adventure Mode to see the dialogue I missed. It was also nice to listen to the soundtrack again – I almost forgot how much it slaps!
It’s been a catty couple of days. I picked back up on Little Kitty Big City! I haven’t touched it in quite awhile, so decided to wander the city and complete a few quests. I also took the time to check out another cat indie game called Copycat.
These two games are like two different ends of a spectrum. Little Kitty Big City is a lighthearted game about accidentally falling out of your window and into the big city. You meet other animals, hats and other things along the way. Meanwhile Copycat is more of a realistic interactive story about how shitty people can be to cats. After finishing Copycat I had to chase it off with some Little Kitty Big City to raise my mood back up. I’ll cover both of them in more detail when I’m feeling better. Been kind of out of it the last couple days. Nothing a little rest can’t cure.
We spent part of our vacations on the Palpagos Islands of Palworld tonight. This game is surprisingly good! I went into this thinking this would be a direct troll to Nintendo but actually came to find a proper game instead! I can only go by what my friend Yutram said: That Palworld feels like a cross between Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokemon Arceus. You’re stranded on an island where you have to gather materials, kill and/or befriend Pals who are the Pokemon of this universe. We’re still early into the development of our home base, but we made it to Level 10 tonight!
We both explored the land together quite a bit tonight. Though Yutram did most of the base work I did forge clothes and gathered materials we could both use for the base, and for food. I’m surprisingly having even more fun than expected! No wonder Nintendo is suing Pocket Pair.
Another evening, another metroidvania to try! Tonight I decided to play The Messenger! You play a ninja that has to carry a scroll to its destination, while slaying demons along the way. In some ways the controls are pretty basic, and the boss battles aren’t over the top hard, but still leave room for error if you die. What I like most about it though is the writing. It has a brilliant sense of humor that ties it all together.
On the surface this game looks like a typical old school platformer from pixel art all the way to music, but then you read the dialogue provided by the characters and it takes you by surprise. From the shop keeper to boss battles – The Messenger shows its sense of humor.
Throughout your adventures you can pass through a portal to the shopkeeper, where you can not only purchase upgrades, but listen to some odd stories as well. The shopkeeper can also give you (not so) valuable advice on boss battles. So far I’ve destroyed two, and only died during the first boss battle. Oh yeah! That’s another thing…
When you die you’ll meet this tiny demon by the name of Quarble who saves your soul, for a price. They save your life in exchange for however many points they decide to steal from you, they’ll even follow you around with a notepad until they’re either satisfied or bored.
I’m pretty happy with it so far. In fact I might continue the party on Steam Deck before calling it a night. There’s just something relaxing about curling up in a blanket with some tea to slaughter a few demons, or at the very least convince them to be less evil.
Since I’ve been doing well at progressing at Metroidvanias as of late – I’ve decided to return to Gal Guardians: Demon Purge to take on a boss that left me raging back in May. Tonight I return to The Little Shop Of Horrors to destroy the Karen of Venus Flytraps. I still died a bunch, but I did eventually destroy the damn thing.
Made it to the library, but as usual it’s getting late just as the gettin’ gets good. I miiiight sneak in a tiny bit more on Steam Deck before fully passing out though. 😉
After last night’s long ass battle in Castlevania I wanted to take a break from the series… kinda. I’m still in a Metroidvania type mood, and when scanning my library of infinite entertainment I landed on Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. Unlike Ritual of the Night, Curse of the Moon stays closer to the old school.
In Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon you play as Zangetsu, a demon slayer who doesn’t take too kindly to demons or anything/anyone inhabiting demonic energy. He bears a deep grudge and seeks a powerful demon in an evil castle. As Zangetsu travels the unforgiving lands he later meets up with characters that also hail from Ritual of the Night.
Curse of the Moon is neither a sequel or a prologue to the first game, but rather a spinoff. At the time of writing I’ve only beaten the first stage, and now that I’m playing a more modern retro-like game I’m not able to rely on save states. I’m not sure how long this will take me to finish, I can’t help but admire how much effort they put into making this look and feel like something that should play on an NES. If I put my mind to it I’m sure I can beat it!
One day while doomscrolling through the Fediverse I came upon Indika; A game about a young girl named Indika, who happens to be a nun in an alternate 19th century Russia. She goes on a journey of self discovery, and meets an unlikely companion along the way. Indika is an indie title with a team so dedicated to finishing their project that they (10 out of 14) had to flee their homeland of Russia in order to finish it. That alone made me curious to see what this game had to offer.
When you start the game it doesn’t take too long to realize that Indika is an outcast amongst her own. She’s forced to reside along a coven of bitchy babushka nuns, and performs tasks her sisters give to her. All the while she is narrated by The Devil himself, who is also a voice in her head. Eventually Indika has to leave the church to go on a journey of self discovery. When Indika isn’t wandering the frozen lands looking for items for basic puzzle solving, she relives childhood flashbacks in a more pixelated environment.
When the game starts she actually falls through space, and later she has a flashback with her father and their oven powered bicycles. The game also gives you the option of collecting points that don’t do anything… or do they?
So far it has been a interesting, unique adventure. Like if classic Resident Evil centered around a nun who goes on regular acid trips. It has the right level of intrigue and horror for me to recommend checking out during Spooktober!
Played a bit more Amnesia: The Dark Descent tonight. Powered the lift that took me to the next area of uncharted territory. So far I’ve managed to stay out of sight from all the spooks., been lucky with my choice of hiding places. I had to resist the temptation to continue, the night grew late for me pretty quickly.
After cycling through my library to see what my brain would fancy I stopped on Infinity Runner. One of the many games in my library that went unplayed… until tonight.
You awaken aboard a spaceship that you’ll later on learn is called The Infinity, and your job is to go streaking throughout the spaceship without dying in an attempt to escape. The only time you’re able to control your character is when you need to jump, slide or press left and right to get over certain obstacles or pick up data packets. So far I’ve only played it with a keyboard and mouse, next time I’ll see how a controller performs.
Once you have a basic rundown of how the controls work, you’ll start to learn that you’re actually a werewolf. Anytime you come in contact with a syringe gun you’ll automatically transform. This doesn’t really mean much though, other than you no longer have to press buttons during cutscenes, at least until you revert back to your human form.
Overall the story is pretty basic, but has a certain charm about it. Every time I’ve glanced at the store page on Steam it always has a status of mixed reviews. I bought it during a sale for about how much it goes now, so I can’t really complain about what I’ve experienced so far. One of the commonly reoccurring complaints I’ve noticed is how short the game is. We’ll see how long I can drag this one out!
It’s Oct 1st, and you know what that means? IT’S SPOOKTOBER!!! The month where I knock the cobwebs off of the spookier titles in my library in an attempt to finish them., or at the very least put a dent in some progression. I spent the final hour of my evening immersing myself in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where I’ve managed to successfully outrun the invisible Water Creature and arrive in some unexplored territory.
Found multiple journal entries and notes, helping to further along the story. I’m currently trying to get some sort of elevator working, just found a key to the machinery room before calling it a night. I found a few cogs, but there are a few other parts of the machine that will require another evening of proper investigation. There’s a reality awaiting me in the morning that I must return to, the Derp Descent awaits.