Metroidvania

Atop The Mountain Of Outland

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Gave my Steam Deck some much needed love tonight after I got home. I haven’t been taking it to work much, and even when I have I haven’t really been playing it. I either don’t have time during lunch to play, or have been so interested in reading on my tablet that all gaming activities can just wait until I get home. It just felt nice plopping down on the bed and playing a bit of Outland. The last time I played was back at the start of the year, my how time flies…

I gained a couple new abilities, and even thwarted a boss battle. I only died a couple times, then continued to die multiple times more during my adventures. Tonight I finally unlocked the launchpad ability! I’m looking forward to visiting past areas to see what I’ve missed. Might find more hearts and orbs to make me stronger, who knows?

A Game Ends and a Weekend Begins

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Finishing Shantae and the Seven Sirens wasn’t what I planned to do to kick off my weekend… but here we are! I still need to go back to 100% the game, but somewhere between my Desktop and Steam Deck I finally beat the game. When I left off months ago I didn’t realize how close to the end I was!

I still need to go back and 100% the game (only got 80% on my first playthrough), but much like Half Genie Hero I had a great time playing. My only complaint is the 60 FPS lock, but on Steam Deck it doesn’t really matter, and to me anything above 60 for a Metroidvania is cherry. Since I’ll have to replay it to get the remaining achievements and missing items I may consider streaming this one, when I can finally be bothered to stream! 😛

Now For Something Completely Different

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Hey look! A game that isn’t Horizon Zero Dawn! Decided to give my Steam Deck some love while doing an SFM render. I got 100% in Hollow Grove and Thornfelt Swamp, now I’m uncovering new ground in Black Root Burrows, or I was just starting to… but it’s getting late for me. My iced tea is ready for tomorrow, a nice Watermelon Oolong with enough caffeine and flavor to wake me up tomorrow.

Speaking of work, a co-worker of mine has been delving more into Linux lately, and he’s actually been taking a liking to it! Although I’ve had to help him with a few things. On Saturday he was complaining to me about how much gaming sucks under Linux still, and it turned out he never even enabled Proton, the compatibility layer for playing Windows games and a large chunk of why the Steam Deck is able to rival so many other handhelds. I’m sure he’ll give me an update the next time I see him. 🙂 It’s nice seeing more people tinkering with Linux, and I own a good portion of that to the Steam Deck! Now gamers will slowly learn Arch commands! :v

A Walk Through Nibel

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My desktop has been rendering the last chunk of animation for the Skyrim video, so I’ve been making some more progress in Ori and the Blind Forest on Steam Deck. It’s actually kinda funny to think that last night I was playing a Playstation game, and now I’ve shifted over to an XBox game, and I don’t even need to own both consoles! 😛 I mostly ventured through Black Root Burrows., and doing what you would typically do in a metroidvania and circle back to older areas after learning new abilities. Mostly finding life and ability cells, and opening up sealed off areas. Fun stuff.

Was actually having a conversation about this at work the other day with another co-worker bud. One of her fave genres is metroidvania, we actually talk about Bloodstained Ritual of the Night on a few occasions, and I’ve also shared other ones with her like the Shantae series and recently Dust. She plays on Playstation, though we do like to dish out on games in general, among other subjects. It’s nice having a few work friends to help the day feel less hellish.

The Dust Finally Settles

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Another evening, another game conquered. I finally made it to the end of Dust: An Elysian Tail. Still have some missing achievements, but I’ll save that for another day. The ending was bittersweet, not only for the ending itself, but knowing I finally reached the end with no further story to continue. I’m glad I savored this one over the years, this was easily one of my fave Metroidvanias to have played.

May-troidvania!

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I think we’re finally getting our summer weather! We almost hit 30 C today. It gave me an excuse to dust out my desktop, it’s been in a dire need of a cleaning. Also got a little sun and Steam Deck time in, played some Gal Guardians and made it through an area that could have drawn inspiration from Little Shop of Horrors, or even have added to it. I had to make my way through a garden that has become most evil, some of the plants try to eat you, and they drink only the freshest blood from sprinklers, or you if you’re not careful.

I did end up having to take a break when I got to the boss battle, kept getting endlessly skull fucked by a Venus Fly Trap and its friends. The game was generous enough to give me some hints after dying one too many times.

Last weekend I installed Decky, a plugin manager for use in Game Mode on the Steam Deck. It’s pretty handy! I’ve already installed Decky Recorder and a few other oddball things. Up at the top is an additional HUD I added called MangoPeel. If you’ve used MangoHud under Linux you probably already know what it is, but it’s a very versatile overlay that allows you to not only view your framerate, but other system statistics as well. Quite handy for watching how much resources are needed for certain games, and how much battery it’s drawing.

It’s supposed to be another hot summer like day tomorrow. Might have to fondle my Deck some more. 🙂

Into The Fire

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After work today I decided to unwind with just me, a controller and a TV – where I would go on to die a couple hundred times and STILL somehow move the plot of Ori and the Blind Forest. Making my way through Mt. Horu, which has taken much patience and even more teeth gritting. It was either going to be this or Horizon Zero Dawn, but I figured I’m getting closer to the end and wanted to push things in the right direction, enough to give myself another break from it. 😛

Obtaining Clarity & Achievements

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Had a relaxing session of Ori and the Blind forest on the couch this afternoon, made it to 63% completion! I cleared the fog from the misty woods and earned several achievements. There was some backtracking and map following for finding energy, ability and health cells. All the while sipping on cherry blossom green tea and snacking on a bit of Orange Mochi.

Of course, while lounging on the couch, my desktop was hard at work exporting the SFM project I worked on yesterday. I’ve been mentally going over how to animate the next scene, it’s a bit different from what I usually work on, but I have some ideas… either way it’ll be crazy.

Finding The Light

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Tonight’s game kinda keeps with last night’s theme. I did have problems remembering how to climb, and then there was timing the parry jumps and other obstacles, but I did cover more ground in the Misty Woods. It’s fortunate that they made the game extremely beautiful, it makes up for all the F bombs I threw tonight while fighting some of the monsters.

This area was fun. When you jump in this area it toggles mushroom platforms, but if you jump out of sequence you’ll jump towards a closed mushroom and inevitably die in a pit of spikes. You just have to remember not to double jump before jumping towards the platform. Next month is Maytroidvania, if I don’t give it more playtime this month I’ll have to keep it in mind for May. Of course, it does compete with the other Metroidvanias in my collection that I’ve yet to finish, though I am pretty close on Dust, and not much further to go in Shantae and the Seven Sirens. In my library you just never know. 😛

The Deadly Trinity

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Trinity Fusion was one of the games I had fun with during Steam Nextfest last year, enough that I ended up buying it.Of course, in my usual fashion I lost sight of it while juggling bunches of other games. But now I’m actually making time for it!

Trinity Fusion is a rougelike/metroidvania combo, though more roguelike than metroidvania – that takes place across three different parallel worlds. You play Maya, and you are connected to your three alternate selves, each with their own special set of abilities.

It’s just as well that I’ve chosen to take my time with this one, as the reviews say that it’s actually a short game. I am happy to support an indie company though, and it does have good battle mechanics. Plus it’s also verified for Steam Deck! I’ll have to load it onto my Deck for some lunch time brawling.