I’ve been having some issues getting back to my “normal” sleep schedule… I find myself waking up just a few afters after sleeping, and instead of lying there hoping to go back to sleep I’ve been reading on my tablet or entertaining myself with something on my Steam Deck until my brain decides it’s time to pass out again. As a result I’ve really been pushing through Freedom Planet 2!
Other than that – I’ve been enjoying my endless tea collection! Mostly green teas with fruit or ginseng, and my nightly Matcha Milk Tea! In fact… I just looked at the clock, and I see that it’s Matcha O’ Clock. I should probably take care of something.
Another week of work means another enjoyable lunch break of food and destruction! It’s been awhile since I’ve played Blade Kitten, it’s one of those games I actually finished a long time ago! But there are still several remaining achievements, plus some free DLC I never completed. I’m also going to try and find all the chests and other secrets. It gives me a good excuse to revisit this classic!
I might pick a different game tomorrow, there is currently 51 games installed on my Steam Deck, so i kan haz optionz.
It was too warm to work on any video footage today, or to even hide myself away at my workstation. It was the perfect day to go outside, chill in the shade and play more Dust: An Elysian Tail on my Deck of Steam. I’ve uncovered new places, found more quests, and have been enjoying whirling my chaos through the air!
Years ago, during my last attempt to play though this game, I found an underground cavern that had underground cherry blossoms followed by giant mushrooms followed by the poisonous semen forest (that’s not what it’s actually called, but I can’t be the only one thinking that) that will eventually lead you to a village populated by a community of cold blooded creatures.
Friendly, cold blooded creatures. 😛 I’m probably going to press on further tomorrow. I’ve already been playing it on and off since Monday. It’s been fun to play on my all time favorite hand held!
Today was a productive day… for my gaming collection! I got all of the achievements in AMID EVIL, and I even decided to play a little bit of Abyss Odyssey for the heckuvit!
Since I spent most of my last weekend sifting through video footage, I figured I would give myself a true break from it and chill in a couple different gaming worlds that have been collecting digital dust on my digital shelf. Now I won’t have to touch AMID EVIL again until The Black Labyrinth DLC releases. As for Abyss Odyssey? I’m not sure if I’ll ever complete this one. I like it, but the controls feel a little clunky. I imagine if I do complete it it’ll be somewhere between now and old age. 😛
My cat adventures are officially over… for now. I beat Stray! I still need to go back and find some missing memories and some other achievements/trophies, but I finished the game AND had fun trying out a couple of mods:
One of the mods you can get from Stray’s Nexus is photo mode! Which is something that should have shipped with the game. It’s a little buggy, and I did crash the game a couple of times, but that only seemed to occur if I Alt-Tabbed one too many times. This mod alone will make my next playthrough of the game all the more worthwhile! Now I can go through the game pretending to be tourist cat. 😛
I also tested the split screen co-op mod. It looks really nice on a big 4K TV! But it’s even buggier than photo mode; If you walk into an area you’re not supposed to the second controller will stop functioning partially, and only Player 1 has the robot and HUD button prompts. It was fun to play with, but this mod still needs some time to mature. It has really been nice seeing all of the different mods popping onto the Nexus for Stray! Now if someone could just add a level editor so people could make their own platforming puzzles that would be purr-fect.
One of these days I’ll play through it again, perhaps when my Steam Deck finally arrives! Until then it’s back to fighting off the rest of my gaming backlog! 😛
Last weekend it went to the wolves (or at least Okami). This weekend I started off with a Crash… of the Bandicoot variety. I looked into uncapping the framerate, but read that certain boss fights didn’t work too well once going beyond 60FPS. On the bright side it looks beautiful in 4K with HDR turned on!
As much fun as I had tonight I already want to take a break from it. I’m thinking of playing something (or somethings) different tomorrow, perhaps even something I haven’t played before. It could possibly give me something to write about. 😛
Took a small break from my platinum shenanigans to play a wee bit of Spyro Trilogy before calling it a night. I finished one of the worlds, and now I’ve left off in a world where I have to help babysit turtles. It was a nice colourful getaway before making preparations to sacrifice myself to the darkness in exchange for work energy. I’m gonna need as much of it is I can this week…
As promised (to myself) I immersed myself in more of Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night, continuously pressing on through challenges and evil demonic beasts (as seen above). If you haven’t treated yourself to this game yet, it’s a metroidvania type that takes places in late 1800’s anime-ified England. You play as Miriam, a young orphan cursed to be a Shardbinder, a being who is slowly being consumed by demonic crystal because of an alchemists curse. She can consume other shards, granting her numerous abilities throughout her journey.
Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night has a fun cast of characters; Tonight I met Todd, a poor soul cursed to roam the halls of this demonic castle as a Killer Barber, a demon that typically cuts more than just hair (and wears high heels for some weird reason). In order to release him from this strange and unusual curse I’ll need to find different hairstyles on my journey, and then impart my knowledge to him so that I can get him one step closer to humanity, and one step closer to achieving the perfect look:
This was the last hairstyle I obtained before calling it a night. I also unlocked a French Braid, and of course lots of weapons and cosmetics. 😛
You too, can harness the power of alchemy to make the perfect french fry! (or chips, given this is Anime England).
I’ve also been doing a lot of Alchemy, and stocking up on potions to ensure that I can escape certain situations… and also feed an old lady who keeps rewarding me with extra swag. I made her these chips and she gave me designer sunglasses as a thanks… late 1800’s Anime England is weird.
Zangetsu (not to be confused with the Bankai).
My biggest challenge was defeating Zangetsu, a super powerful fire samurai, voiced by David Hayter himself! There’s no hiding that dummy thicc voice from me! 😛 It took me awhile, but I finally learned how to defeat him; though something tells me that I’m not quite through with him yet, and not because he’s also a playable character now! I guess at some point I’ll have to take control of him, he looks like he could be fun to play.
Before and After Modding
In order to improve my experience I ventured over to the PCGamingWiki and found a fix for jagged 3D models that appear during NPC chat and the status screen. On the left is what it looks like without the mod, and on the right is with the mod in place. By default, the game is set to render these models at 1080p even if you’re running at a higher resolution (1440p in my case). This mod upscales the models to 4K for a less jagged look. The mod can be located here.
All in all, from the 7 hours I’ve invested into this game thus far, I can say that if you like Metroidvanias you should definitely consider this one (assuming you’re like me and haven’t played it already). It has stunning visuals, excellent voice cast and it’s a fun kind of grind with a gripping story… or perhaps it’s the month of Halloween possessing me to have a good time. 😛
