Entry 008 - Feb/Mar/Apr/May

Hogwarts Legacy, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Hades II

Well, it's certainly been a while since my last gamelog entry! To be honest, I haven't really been playing much these past few months. Or at least, not much I feel like talking about. The DLC for Splatoon 3 was released, but I haven't touched it yet. I'm all Splatooned out, I'm afraid. I haven't played the game since January lol. In February and March, I mainly spent my time rotting by replaying Skyrim. Again. I'm currently in the middle of the Dark Brotherhood, Dawnguard (vampire), and the main questlines. Haven't touched the Dragonborn DLC yet, and I don't plan on doing the civil war stuff. I've put a ton of hours into Skyrim, but I've only beaten the entire thing once. Usually, I make a character and tell myself I won't be a stealth archer again (which is a lie), play a decent amount, stop, and then don't touch the game for a year. Then, when I go back, I've forgotten what I was doing so I just start over again lol. At this point, I've memorized quite a few quests and dungeons in their entirety.

Anyway, I got a bit farther into Hogwarts Legacy before putting it down. Not because it was bad or anything. I just have issues when it comes to beating games lmao. Whenever I'm nearing the end of a game, I usually lose motivation to keep playing it. I guess I don't like it when things are over or something? Not sure, but I will pick this game back up again! Eventually. It's currently winter, and I'm in the middle of the major character quests. I was going to say that I'm doing illegal shit with Sebastian, but then I realized that all three questlines involve you doing things that are probably illegal. Funny that. Anyway, my character is currently live love laughing while casting horrible curses on her enemies. I've been really enjoying the character development/exploration in all three questlines. Sebastian's is the standout of the three, but I also really like Poppy's and Natty's quests so far. I will say that Sebastian is an absolutely horrible friend. Poor, poor Ominis. Not only is his best friend really shitty, but my character is 100% happy to enable Sebastian lol.

In April, I randomly got the urge to play Animal Crossing: Wild World. I own the cart for Wild World, but I decided to test out TWiLightMenu. TWiLightMenu can do a bunch of stuff, but what mainly interested me was that you can play DS games and be able to take screenshots with it, something you can't do with the base 3DS. Perfect for taking pictures for my gamelog! How convenient! Anyway, I created a town called Canto. My ACNH island is called Sonata so I decided to keep with the music theme. Since it's an earlier Animal Crossing game, you can't do as much as you can in the later games. Customization is pretty limited, and the overall game performance isn't great. The frame rate in Wild World is like 20 fps at best. I think most people who haven't played it before will struggle with the choppy frame rate and old graphics. But, Wild World definitely makes up for its flaws with how soulful the game is. I may be biased because Wild World was the first Animal Crossing game I played and was an important part of my childhood. But, it still has that old-school Animal Crossing charm. Aka, the villagers are mean and say the wildest shit. I was cracking up while playing this. When you start the game, you complete the basic tutorial as Tom Nook's assistant. Upon introducing yourself to your villagers, they immediately make fun of you. Angus straight up laughed in my face and called me a moron. Later, Dottie said I looked like a broke bitch, but it was okay because she was actually trying to be nice.

The day after he moved in, Genji called me fat and demanded if I was slacking off on the workout plan he gave me. When I said I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, he had the audacity to get mad at me! Some of the dialogue had me cackling. I forgot how funny the villagers were in the old games. In the newer ones, they're so generic, nice, and booooooring. Please Nintendo, give me some personality!

The cool thing about TWiLightMenu is that it launches DS games using nds-bootstrap, so that the games are played natively instead of being emulated. This means that, using local play, I was able to connect Canto, my ROM town, to the town I have on my game cart by finding my old DS and using it to connect to my hacked 3DS. Wild World is a bit annoying in that you can't get the final Nook store upgrade unless you have a friend visit your town and buy something from Tom Nook. Luckily for me, I could just visit myself! I even randomly found Katie later and was able to return her to her mother. Although I will say that the connection is VERY unstable. I'm not sure if it's because of nds-bootstrap, my DS being really shitty and old, or if local play connections are just trash, but I had connection issues despite my DS and 3DS being right next to each other. I'll need to do more testing, but so far it seems like having a stable connection is just a matter of luck. It was fine for me because my visits (to myself) didn't take long, but if you're planning on spending time visiting your friend's town, you might have an issue.

ACWW Image Dump

After playing Wild World for a bit, I got curious and wanted to compare the game to New Leaf. Despite owning New Leaf since high school, I actually haven't played this game all that much. Aside from the GameCube game, it might be the Animal Crossing game I've played the least of. (I've never played City Folk.) It has a lot of customization options and some of the cutest furniture, in my opinion, but I remember the dialogue in this game being VERY generic. And, upon returning to New Leaf, I can confirm that the dialogue is boring. Unpopular(?) opinion, but it might actually be worse than New Horizons. Now, this might be because I've played New Horizons more, but I can actually remember some notable dialogue from villagers in that game. In New Leaf, they all blend together and they say nothing of note. They're just cardboard. Again, I haven't played that much, so my opinion could change. But currently, I find talking to my villagers in ACNL to be more boring than in ACNH. At least in ACNH, your villagers will occasionally say something funny. It's just that their dialogue is very repetitive. Of course, Wild World and the GameCube Animal Crossing are far superior in terms of villager personalities. Anyway, Molly's birthday happened like the day after I started my new town so I had to scrounge for a gift. Luckily, she seemed to like it. I completed my mayor permit and am currently in the process of cleaning up my town and waiting for upgrades/villagers to move out. I sold my previous town, so money isn't an issue. Nintendo disabled internet servers for the 3DS, so I don't think you can visit dream towns anymore. Or at least, not until Pretendo supports ACNL.

In May, the long-awaited Hades II was released in early access. The first game was fantastic, so I immediately jumped at the opportunity to play Hades II. Unfortunately, I've been busy and haven't been able to play a lot. According to my save file, I've done eight runs so far, but I do have some thoughts! Overall, I think Hades II is really fun! It is different than the first game, and I'm still trying to get used to it. From my early impressions, Hades II seems to be harder than Hades, but this might be based on your playstyle. Combat in Hades II seems to be more range-oriented, which isn't my favorite. In Hades, I liked being able to go unga-bunga, but in this game, you have to play more tactically. You'll get heavily punished if you just run in and try to face-tank the enemies. Additionally, Melinoë isn't as nimble as Zagreus. She has a slower dash and can only dash once, so positioning is more important. There is a wider variety of boons in this game, which can lead to some pretty interesting builds. However, I feel like this also leads to some very inconsistent builds. Since the boon pool is so diluted, you can easily get screwed by RNG and have a build with no damage. This issue is partially ameliorated when you unlock rerolls later in the game, but it still feels bad. Even in the early game of Hades, I felt like I was dealing damage. Meanwhile, in many of my runs in this game, it felt like I was just tickling the enemies.

Overall, the bosses in Hades II feel harder than the ones from the first game. Not that I'm complaining. The second boss is absolutely fantastic! I love the overall design of that boss battle, and the 'featured artist' gimmick is so cool! Funnily enough, while overall I think Hades II is harder, the third and fourth areas in this game are way easier than the first one. I practically breezed through the fourth one. On my eighth run, I made it all the way to Chronos but then died. I can't really say much about his fight since I've only fought him once, but some of his attacks seem a little... cheesy? Cheap? I'm not sure, but I feel like his attacks could have been telegraphed better. Or maybe I just need to git gud. (￣▽￣;)

I really love the character designs in this game! Even though some portraits are clearly unfinished or have placeholders, I think they all look really good! I'm not sure if romance has been implemented in the game yet, but I do think it's funny that the two characters that are probably romanceable are very similar to the ones in Hades. Clearly, Supergiant Games has a preference lol. Before Hades II came out, I thought I'd be all over Nemesis, but the character that actually caught my eye is Hecate. Her design is so cool! 👀 Anyway, I'm excited to play more! I still have so much to unlock! I mean, I haven't even encountered Chaos yet! If you're on the fence on trying out Hades II, I'd recommend it! Even though it's in early access, it feels like it has enough content to qualify for a 'full' game.

Entry 007 - Nov/Dec/Jan

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Splatoon 3, Hogwarts Legacy

During November, I got sick with the flu and spent a good amount of time in bed playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. After being on the search for her for over three years, I finally found Goldie! Or rather, she found me. She just happened to be at my campsite one day. It's pretty hilarious considering the sheer amount of Nook Miles I have spent island hopping in search of her. After spending several minutes badgering her, she agreed to move to my island. Currently, I have Goldie, Bob, Bea, Julian, Hazel, Marshal, Fang, Ketchup, Dom, and Whitney on my island. Everyone except for Whitney is a permanent resident. Whitney is in my 'rotating' slot, where I invite random villagers just to shake things up. I'm planning on having Bea and Goldie be neighbors, where they can spend time reading and gardening in their shared yard. It'll be super cute! I spent a little time decorating my island, but I mainly focused on skipping ahead in time. I mentioned this in an earlier entry, but I'm a little neurotic when it comes to playing Animal Crossing. I don't play daily, but I hate to 'miss' a day, so I keep track of the date I last played and set the calendar to match it. In Animal Crossing time, I'm currently still in 2022... I keep telling myself that I'll just skip to important dates and events to time travel quickly, but then I end up getting distracted and playing normally. Oops! Aside from getting Goldie, I have nothing interesting to report. Although, for some reason, whenever a villager visits my house, they keep sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. It's pretty funny!

During the past few months, there have been a few events in Splatoon 3. In November and January, there were two Splatfests. I was on the losing team for both of them. I was part of Team Fist Bump for the November Splatfest (Handshake vs. Fist Bump vs. Hug). Then, for the January Frostyfest (Friends vs. Family vs. Solo), I was on Team Friends. Unfortunately, Team Solo swept. Splatoon players are friendless, familyless losers loners confirmed. 😔 In December, there was a Big Run, where the new King Salmonid, Megalodontia, debuted. Finally, FINALLY, after 3,000 years of agony, I scored high enough to reach Gold Rank in Big Run!! I don't really care about the statue you get at the end of Big Run to decorate your locker. I mainly wanted the gold badge to show off on my namecard. I finally have all three to display proudly! °˖✧◝(*ˊᗜˋ*)◜✧˖°

In January, I finally got around to playing Hogwarts Legacy! I'm fashionably late to play things, as always. Although, in my defense, I was waiting to play it with a friend who only has a Switch. The game was released for the Switch (finally) in like, November I think? But she didn't end up getting it until late December. I was waffling a bit about whether or not I wanted to get it for PC. Obviously, PC is the best way to play due to better performance and mod access. But, after asking my friend about how it felt to play the game on the Switch, I decided to buy it on the Switch as well. The appeal of being able to play in bed was just too strong lmao. Overall, I think the performance of the Switch version is pretty decent. Honestly, I'm surprised it runs as well as it does. There are some issues where textures take a few seconds to load in fully, as well as lag while the game loads new areas. The Switch graphics are obviously a little crunchy. Not much anti-aliasing to be seen. But overall, it runs alright. I think the biggest issue for people will be the loading screens to access new areas. This is especially noticeable in Hogsmeade, where each building is a separate instance to load. On the PC, you can just go in and out of buildings without loading screens. This will probably annoy a lot of people. However, as someone who grew up playing Morrowind on the Xbox, loading screens do not phase me in the slightest lol.

My friend is playing as a Hufflepuff and I'm in Slytherin. I ended up recreating an old OC of mine named Adrasteia "Adra" Pyrites. (In an early draft for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a Death Eater named Pyrites was supposed to accompany Voldemort on the night he killed the Potters. A wizard named Argo Pyrites was also mentioned in this early draft, said to have authored an alchemical text called Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science. It's unknown if Argo is the same as the Death Eater or a relative. But that's where I gained the inspiration for Adra, as well as the ancient Greek naming theme.) Originally, I planned on having Adra be related to the Death Eater Pyrites, either as a daughter or sister. But now that I've plopped her down in Victorian-era Hogwarts Legacy, I'm reconsidering her background. Anyway, enough OC autism. I wish Hogwarts Legacy had a more robust character creator. Basically, all you can do is pick from a selection of premade faces as well as customize your hair, skin, and eyes. I definitely prefer character creators that let you alter individual parts of the face. The faces available in Hogwarts Legacy look a little weird. You're supposed to be a 5th year, so like 15/16 years old. However, I feel like a lot of the faces make you look older. It probably doesn't help that the mouth animations are a little janky. Like a lot of other games, your character kind of looks like they are wearing dentures because the mouth shows the teeth too much and the lips are oddly animated. This is mainly because a lot of game studios use an algorithm to animate speech. Hand-animating would take far too long. But because of this, characters end up looking strange while talking. This is definitely a nitpick, but it's something that I always end up noticing lol. Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun wandering around and exploring the world. Hogwarts looks great! I'm so used to how it looks in the movies that I was a little startled by all of the embellishments the game makes with the castle. It almost feels too fancy, if that makes sense? Especially considering it's basically a boarding school for children. Still, it looks amazing and I love all of the little details. I love the portrait of Wendelin the Weird (what an icon) as well as this astronomy tapestry. It's beautiful!

The Slytherin common room also looks amazing! It's fancy and yet cozy, perfect for all of the stuck-up pureblood scions in Slytherin. I've seen people criticize the gameplay of Hogwarts Legacy, calling it a generic Ubisoft-esque open-world game. As someone who doesn't play those types of games, I've been having fun. I think the last game I've played in this style was Dragon Age: Inquisition. (Speaking of which, I should go back and finally beat that game...) Comparing the two games, so far I've been enjoying Hogwarts Legacy a lot more. Traversing the world is less tedious than it is in DAI, especially once you've unlocked the broom. I love flying around! The combat is also way more enjoyable. Aside from the world itself, the combat might be my favorite aspect of this game. I'm playing on hard mode, and it's so much fun once you get the hang of it! The fights are challenging, but none of the enemies have felt like health sponges so far. They just hit really hard, so if you don't react in time, you're punished. This makes even regular fights feel exciting. My only complaint is that juggling between spell sets is a little annoying. I think that the quests in Hogwarts Legacy are also more interesting. I haven't gotten to the major side quests that happen later in the game, but even the generic fetch or collection quests don't feel anywhere near as tedious as the ones in DAI. Admittedly, it might not be fair to compare the two games, as DAI came out in 2014. (Wow. It has really been that long...) But it's the only game I've played that can really be compared to Hogwarts Legacy. As I've said, I usually don't play these types of games. Of course, the gameplay in Hogwarts Legacy isn't perfect by any means. There's a lot that can be improved! I wish that there were more involved 'dungeons' in the open world. A lot of the treasure caves are pretty boring to explore, although some of the ruins have fun mini puzzles. While I don't mind the Merlin Trials in theory, having to watch the same unskippable cutscene every time I complete one is super annoying. My main complaint is the lack of social interactions in the game. I wish the developers did more with the characters. I want to be able to talk to them whenever I wish and build friendships. Unfortunately, you can only really interact with them when it's plot-relevant. For instance, in one quest, you break into the Restricted Section with a Slytherin named Sebastian Sallow. You end up getting caught but Sebastian takes the fall for you, allowing you to get away scot-free. After this, I wanted to check in with him to see how he was doing after getting in trouble. This wasn't the first time he's been caught, so the consequences for him seemed to be pretty severe. Unfortunately, you can't speak with him at all until a few quests later, when another mainline quest involves him. This really annoyed me because it made it feel like my character was an uncaring ass lol.

Speaking of characters, Sebastian is definitely my favorite so far. I also like Natty and have recently met Poppy, who seems cool. I'm intrigued by Ominis and want to learn more about him, considering that he's a Gaunt and is related to Tom Riddle aka Voldemort. I also really like Professor Garlick, the Herbology professor. She's a really cutie! I didn't realize that Phineas Nigellus Black was the headmaster during this time, so I was delighted to see him. He's such a dick lol. Progress-wise, I think I'm nearing the middle of the game? It's now autumn at Hogwarts, and the last quest I completed was the Beasts class one with Poppy. I'm currently looking for a goblin helmet outside of Hogsmeade. I'm excited to play more and see how things turn out! I'm especially excited to get to the major character side quests, particularly Sebastian's. I've heard that his questline is actually better than the main story, so I have high expectations!

Entry 006 - Sept/Oct

Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor, Splatoon 3, Minecraft, RimWorld

In September, I finished up Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor. It was my first Nancy Drew game and while I thought it was fine overall, I'm not sure if I'd recommend it as your first Nancy game. Apparently it's one of the harder ones? Some of the puzzles aren't very intuitive and it felt like I was just brute-forcing my way through them. (Although maybe that's just a skill issue on my part lol. I might not have been paying enough attention.) My biggest complaint was that it does this thing that a lot of adventure games do where it's super easy to miss a click cue leading to a new area. I was hard stuck during a certain portion of the game just because I didn't move my mouse cursor over a small area in the hidden passageways. I eventually had to look up a walkthrough to progress. Still, I had fun overall. While I thought the mystery was pretty dumb, the game was charming. It satisified my itch for a point-and-click game and I liked the old school graphics, as wonky as they look. I'll probably play more Nancy games in the future, when the mood arises.

I'm definitely not playing Splatoon 3 as much as I used to, but I had to check out the Splatfests for September and October. September was the 1-year anniversary for Splatoon 3! To celebrate, there was a special Splatfest where the theme was Shiver vs. Frye vs. Big Man. I was Team Shiver and we ended up winning! ヽ(o^▽^o)ﾉ To be honest, I'm pretty indifferent towards Deep Cut in general. I don't really have any preference towards the idols and just picked Shiver because I knew she was most popular lol. I was a little surprised (and amused) by the toxicity that came about during that Splatfest. Team Frye talked a lot of shit just to come in last place. Poor Frye lmao. In October was Splatoween! I was a little worried that Nintendo was going to skip it again but they came through this year! The theme was Zombies vs. Skeletons vs. Ghosts. I was Team Ghosts and we managed to win. Hurray for a win streak! To be honest, I was a little surprised by the win. From my matches, Skeletons were absolutely stomping Ghosts. Team Zombie was practically nonexistant. The Tricolor stage for this Splatfest was Brinewater Springs, and I think it might be the worst Tricolor stage yet. Playing on defense was god awful. I don't really like Tricolor in general but good lord. I really hope Nintendo drops Tricolor for the eventual Splatoon 4. It's a nice experiment in theory, but in practice it isn't fun and having three idols makes the popularity disparity between teams even more drastic.

I decided to take a break from LISA: The Painful. I plan on returning to it eventually, but I just wasn't in the mood. I've been feeling very (seasonally) depressed lately. Super tired and unmotivated. When I'm in a mood like this, all I want to do is play mindless comfort games. So, I turned to Minecraft and RimWorld. I decided to play with a texture pack for the first time. I was so used to vanilla Minecraft that it was super jarring at first, but eventually I got used to it. I started a new world and found a mine within a lush caves system. I love lush caves! They're so pretty. Here's my cave biome ranking: lush > regular > deep dark >>>>>>>>>>>> dripstone. I absolutely despise dripstone caves lmao. After exploring a bit (and getting blown up by a creeper twice), I decided to venture out and find an area to build a house. I found a nice spot between a meadow and an alpine forest to settle down. There was a village nearby for convenient trading. I'm not the best at building things in Minecraft but I managed to build a small cottage. I'm using Mizuno's 16 Craft texture pack. I built my cottage using granite. I think granite in vanilla Minecraft looks hideous, but I love the way it looks with the texture pack enabled. The texture pack also changes the appearances of mobs and creatures. I like that it gives different variants to animals like cows and sheep. They're super adorable! But, I don't know how I feel about the way villagers and endermen look. It turns villagers into furries. They're... cute, I guess? Maybe I'm just not used to them, but I find it hard to distinguish between villager job types based on their outfits. Not the biggest fan of the changes to endermen. They look very 2010s Tumblr. While I was building my cottage, an enderman teleported inside. He was a very polite home invader. He walked around and inspected my furniture before peacing out.

Anyway, here's an image dump of my home. I had fun decorating it! (right click -> open image in new tab for a better look!)

MC Image Dump

I also built a wizard tower nearby following this video. I am pleased to announce that I didn't die once from fall damage! 😎 I should follow build guides more often. I feel like I learned a lot just from this one project. I'm planning on using this tower for enchanting and brewing. After getting tired of building, I did some more exploring. After finishing mapping out the area where my house is located, I decided to explore the next grid square over. There, I found two woodland mansions. I decided to poke my head into one and immediately regretted it because I got one-shot by a Vindicator. They are very scary in hard mode. ._. The texture pack makes them kind of look like Jason Voorhees.

Mods Featured

• Optifine
• BSL Shaders
• Mizuno's 16 Craft
• Mizuno's 16 Craft CIT Pack
• Miniatura CIT Pack + CIT Frame
• Hananacraft
• Ghoulcraft [Furniture]
• Ghoulcraft [Garden/Outdoor]
• Ghoulcraft [Magic]
• Ghoulcraft [Medieval/Pirate]
• Jerm's Better Leaves Add-On

In late October, I ended up getting bored of Minecraft. It's one of those games that I play obsessively for hours and then burn myself out on. So, I switched to RimWorld. I started a new game where my colony is a bunch of murderous misandrists lol. I made a custom ideology for it but aside from the man-hating, it's pretty chill. I'm kind of thinking I should have gone harder on the ideology and made it weirder, just to spice things up, because I've defaulted back to having a bog-standard organ-harvesting colony. (Don't @ me, that's just RimWorld things). Or maybe I shouldn't have built my base on a mountainous temperate forest map like I always do lmao. Despite it being released a year ago, I haven't played much with the Biotech DLC. Maybe I'll restart with the sanguophage scenario or something idk. I have too many mods to list, so I'll just recommend a few. P-Music adds more vanilla-friendly music to the game, RimHUD for UI and Camera+ for zooming in, Alpha Animals, Giddy-up! series, and the Vanilla Furniture Expanded series. I haven't checked them all out but I'm sure most mods in the Vanilla Expanded collection in general are probably good. Obviously you'll also need Harmony and HugsLib to get things working, as well as various frameworks for some of the mods listed. Make sure to check requirements!

Entry 005 - Jul/Aug

Death's Door, Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor, LISA: The Painful

During July, I started and completed an indie Soulslike game called Death's Door. In it, you play as a small crow that works as a reaper. Your job is to collect the souls of those who won't die willingly. However, something goes wrong on a mission you are sent on, and you now have to collect the giant souls of three bosses in order to open Death's Door. Along the way, you learn more about the reaping bureau you work for and its boss, the Lord of Doors. The game was short (around 10 hours to beat) and pretty polished. I think I only encountered one bug near the end. The art style was charming and the soundtrack was really chill. I'd say in terms of difficulty, it was easier than actual Souls games but still challenging at times. Most bosses took several tries and there were a few rooms that I had trouble with. Would recommend if you like Soulslike games!

I'm currently in the middle of Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor and LISA: The Painful. I was in the mood for a point-and-click game so I randomly downloaded Blackmoor Manor. It's the first Nancy Drew game I've played and I just randomly picked it. I believe it's technically the 11th in the series, but you don't have to play them sequentially. Anyway, you play as the titular amateur detective, Nancy Drew. In this mystery, you are sent to England to figure out what is wrong with Linda Penvellyn. Linda seems to believe that she is cursed. Along the way, you investigate the mysteries of the Penvellyn family and Blackmoor Manor. I'm having fun but I gotta say, I make for a horrible detective lmao. I keep forgetting what I was doing in between play sessions, and at this point, I feel like I'm brute-forcing my way through solving puzzles lol. I'm kind of tempted to start over just so that I can remember what I was doing. I'm currently on the forge puzzle. There are some aspects of the game that annoy me. For instance, in order to traverse certain parts of the manor, you have to repeatedly solve puzzles that you have already solved. Having to remember the solutions is irritating. You can get hints from a parrot named Loulou, but the parrot is so annoying and has such a grating voice that I've been avoiding her. I also find the overall mystery to be a little silly. That being said, I'm still enjoying the game. I think I'm nearing the end, so I probably won't start over.

The Definitive Editions of LISA: The Painful and LISA: The Joyful recently came out. I figured that now was a good time to finally check out the series. The games are Earthbound-like indie RPGs with a cult following. They take place in a post-apocalyptic setting where all women mysteriously vanished in a cataclysm called 'The Flash'. Only boys and men remain and with humanity seemingly doomed, chaos and violence have reigned. In LISA: The Painful, you play as a taciturn man named Brad. Years ago, he found an abandoned baby girl who somehow survived. He decides to raise the girl, whom he names Buddy. As quite possibly the only female human alive, Buddy's very existence is dangerous, and so Brad has raised the girl in secrecy with his friends. However, Buddy is eventually found and kidnapped, and Brad sets out on a journey to rescue her. I'm playing on Pain Mode, which may be a mistake considering this is my first time lol. I'm not that far in so I can't say much, but woof, the beginning was pretty heavy. I've heard good things about the story, so I'm curious to see what I'll think about it. The soundtrack is unconventional, but I really like it so far. The music was actually what introduced me to LISA in the first place, years back.

Entry 004 - Apr/May/Jun

Resident Evil 4 Remake, Splatoon 3, & Metroid Prime Remastered

Finished up Resident Evil 4 Remake in April and I had an absolute blast! Unfortunately, since it's been a couple of months, my thoughts on the game aren't fresh so my review won't be as specific as I'd like. But, I really, really enjoyed the remake! There's a reason why the game broke sales records and received critical acclaim. Capcom did an outstanding job with it. I loved the expanded characterizations in the remake. The Merchant and Luis were delightful and while I liked Ashley in the original, she's fantastic in the remake. I loved that it kept the goofy humor from the original. The gameplay was fun and I loved the new knife mechanics. The graphics were amazing. I loved seeing all of the old locations reimagined in the RE Engine. I spent soooo much time just looking around and admiring the details. Really, I don't have much to criticize. This game was a complete hit with me! It felt fan-servicey in all of the right ways. Some highlights include: the opening of the game (of course), the mine cart sequence with Luis, just seeing all of the enemy designs in general (regenerators are so creepy and jiggly now), and the Krauser fight. If you are even slightly interested, I highly recommend checking the remake out! All that being said, I'm curious to see where Capcom goes from here. The ending hints at a RE5 remake, which I'm not sure how I feel about. Are they just going to remake that and then RE6? What then? This might be slightly blasphemous, but I'd love to see them remake RE1. Well, remake it again. A re-remake, if you will. I'd love to see the Spencer Mansion in the RE Engine.

Throughout April and May, I played more of Splatoon 3. In May, we had a crossover Splatfest to celebrate the release of Tears of the Kingdom. The teams were Power vs. Wisdom vs. Courage. I chose Team Power and, for the first time since the demo, I was on the winning team! Woohoo! I was starting to think that I was cursed lol. Team Power swept! 😎 I liked the Triforce-themed Tricolor stage. The pyramid was a neat gimmick. I had fun playing Splat Roller and squishing everyone lmao. I managed to rerank back up to S+ before the season ended and completed the catalogue last minute. I'd like to thank the Inkbrush for carrying me in Anarchy battles. At this point, it's pretty much become my main weapon. I've become pretty good with it, if I do say so myself. Of course, there's always room to improve. I think right now, I need to get better at dealing with long-range weapons. There are some matches where I feel absolutely useless because the enemy team has too much pressure and I don't have any room to zip around and kill the backliners. Recently, there was another Big Run, this time at Undertow Spillway. I wasn't able to play too much unfortunately but from the little I played, I had a pretty difficult time lol. The stage itself is a little wonky and it's easy to get overwhelmed very quickly by enemies. Despite being in EVP, a lot of my teammates were kind of brain dead. They kept overextending to the enemy spawns instead of sticking close to the basket. Every round felt like a struggle to survive, and there was little breathing room to overfish. The fact that the Grizzco Charger was in rotation didn't help. The weapon itself is fine. But I would have preferred a more close range weapon to help clear through mobs. While cute, Smallfry are voracious little demons. I've been enjoying the new season, although I wish that we got a new King Salmonid boss. The new Salmon Run stage is nice, but I'm still waiting for Ruins of Ark Polaris to return. Please Nintendo! It's the absolute best stage! It's so much fun skating around the ride rails. Also unrelated, but I love the new fistbump feature. It's so cute!


In late May, I decided to finally check out Metroid Prime Remastered. I had played the original on the GameCube but it's been years. I'm not sure what the difference between a remaster and a remake is, but I'd argue that Metroid Prime Remastered for the Nintendo Switch is almost like a remake in terms of quality. Not only have the controls been updated for dual-stick controllers (you can change back to the original controls in the menu), but the sound is now HD and everything has been remodeled and retextured. The game looks absolutely fantastic and feels great to play. Aiming feels fluid now. I stole these screenshots from reddit [1, 2] but you can see the difference between the original and the remastered versions. I've always loved how atmospheric Metroid Prime is and the remaster is no different. The environments look so pretty now. I hate the Phazon Mines but it looks gorgeous in the remake. All in all, I'm having a fantastic time playing. I've completed most of the game. Currently, I'm hunting the remaining Chozo Artifacts before moving on to the final stretch of the game. I think I have three remaining artifacts to find. My only criticism of the game is the same criticism I had of the original: there is too much backtracking. I don't mind some backtracking in games. I even like how the game is designed around you visiting prior areas to unlock new stuff and new shortcuts. It's really neat seeing how the different levels connect. But, once you reach the final stretch of the game and have to find the final Chozo artifacts, it gets a little exhausting. At this point, I've had the Magmoor Caverns theme stuck in my head for days.

Entry 003 - Mar

Splatoon 3, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, & Resident Evil 4 Remake

Big Run occurred earlier this month in Splatoon 3. I had a lot of fun! The new King Salmonid boss, Horrorboros, looks really cool and is more fun to fight than Cohozuna. I managed to make it to the top 20% this time! Hopefully next time, I'll reach the top 5% but I'm not sure how feasible that is. The score threshold will probably keep rising as people get better and since I play freelance, my scores are heavily reliant on luck. I'd really like to get the gold Big Run badge, but I also don't want to find a Discord group to play with. Oh well, we'll see. There will be a Splatfest at the end of the month! The theme is Nessie vs. Aliens vs. Bigfoot. I'll be on Team Alien! 👽

During the middle of the month, I got sick with the flu and spent almost an entire week in bed. It was pretty rough, but I'm feeling better now! When I wasn't sleeping or watching videos, I played a lot of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. I pretty much blitzed through the entirety of Year 3 and am now in Year 4 in Stardew. I've purchased all of the community upgrades and am currently saving up for the Gold Clock. Once I've bought that, all I have left in the game is to get all of the Stardrops and 100% the crafting menu. The only item I haven't made is the Life Elixir. I can't believe I haven't made it yet lol. I guess I always just bought them from the Dwarf. Unfortunately, I'm currently in Fall and I need a morel mushroom to craft it, which only shows up in the Spring. Unless I get lucky with the Traveling Cart, I'll have to wait until next Spring to finish things up. I finally asked Haley out to be my girlfriend. I was planning on moving straight to marriage but then I remembered that I never decorated my farm house. It looked like an absolute mess so I spent most of Summer decorating it. I guess I felt a little embarrassed getting married with a house that looks so bad lol. Here's a picture of my farm from the Summer and what my house currently looks like in the Fall! (Right click to open the images in a new tab for a better look!)

I got a lot of inspiration for my house decor by looking at pictures of other people's houses. I'm planning on putting the big Junimo Plush by the right kid's bed once I get it at the end of the season (hopefully I'll remember). I might have to rearrange some furniture once Haley moves in. I'm not sure what path spouses take throughout the house, so I'll need to make sure that furniture isn't blocking her way. But anyway, I'm really pleased with how my house turned out! I'm less sure how I feel about my farm layout. Still not sure what to do at the bottom right. I also don't know where I'm going to put the Gold Clock. It's kind of an eyesore, so I might just try to hide it somewhere lol. Also, please ignore the mess in the top right. Not sure how to organize that section. Once Haley moves in, I'll definitely want to move things around.

I played a little bit of Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the first time in months. I'm a little weird about Animal Crossing. I hate missing any in-game days but I also will take breaks that last months. So, I'll write down the last (in-game) day I played which was on July 14th... of 2021. Lmao. So, I reset my Switch clock to July 15th to continue playing. I'm so behind lol. I'm not sure if I'll ever catch up so that my in-game day will match the actual date. Anyway, it was nice to be back on my island. My current villagers are: Bob, Julian, Hazel, Marshal, Fang, Ketchup, Bea, Dom, Dobie, and Peanut. I'm currently waiting for Peanut and Dobie to move. I'm searching for Goldie and then planning on having that last villager slot be open for visitors to rotate through. Marshal had me run an errand and as thanks, gave me his photo. I think this is the 5th or 6th time I've gotten it from him lmao. At this point, I could make an impressive Marshal shrine lol. He cracks me up! "Oh, thanks for delivering that present. Here, have an autographed photo of yours truly!" I hope to one day have the amount of self-confidence he has. Hazel dropped by my house to visit. Here's a picture of us in my second floor room. It's supposed to look like a high-rise apartment of sorts. This angle isn't the greatest but I'm pretty pleased with the way this room has turned out. I still have my main room and the north room on the first floor to decorate, but I've been dragging my feet on doing so. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to decorating things. I'm almost never in the mood. Here's a picture of Julian, Ketchup, and Bob looking very rad at the town square. I love it when villagers do random activities there. It's so cute! I spent most of my time getting reacquainted to playing New Horizons and on my island. It's still unfinished so I don't feel like showing off too much of it. Maybe one day, when I finally get around to making a separate Animal Crossing page? I have fully decorated parts of my island and like the way they look, but then I stopped once the DLC came out. I felt like I should wait to collect more of the DLC furniture to use, and then I just stopped playing and took a months long break lol. I really should stop procrastinating and start decorating. One of my friends still plays New Horizons regularly. She told me the other day that she's bulldozing her island to redecorate it again. I'd like to finally be able to show off a finished version of my island to her. She's seen my island before, but I haven't really done much work on it since. Meanwhile, I think this is her 4th or 5th time redecorating. She's going for a jungle theme this time. I'm excited to see it! Speaking of the DLC, I spent a little bit of time decorating some vacation homes. I like the way the exterior of Coco's house turned out. I like the atmosphere the fog gives, and I think it suits her slightly creepy (but cute!) appearance.

Recently, the remake for Resident Evil 4 came out and I've been having a blast playing it! I haven't played a lot, but it's really good so far! I know some people don't like the darker tone the newer games take, but I kind of like it. I think it suits the more realistic appearance of the newer games, and we still always have the old ones to go back to when you want a goofier time. I was a little worried about the way Leon looked in preview screenshots, but I think he looks fine in-game. Poor man is desperately in need of a nap though. As I mentioned before, I haven't played too much so far. I'm still near the beginning of the game, but from what I've played, I think Capcom did an excellent job with the gameplay. The OG Resident Evil 4 is well-known for its intense action, and the remake does a fantastic job with improving upon it. The knife parry mechanic is great. It helps give you some breathing room, but it doesn't feel overpowered by any means. I'm playing on hardcore difficulty, so the parry has definitely come in handy! I also like the auto-sort option for the briefcase. Playing tetris with your inventory is fun, but it gets old pretty quickly. The graphics look amazing. It's so cool to see familiar locations reinterpreted with modern graphics. Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. Resident Evil 4 Remake looks to be an amazing game! I'm glad that Resident Evil 4 Remake is good. After the disappointing Resident Evil 3 Remake, I was a little worried.

Entry 002 - Feb

Splatoon 3, Stardew Valley, Dark Souls: Remastered, & Elden Ring DLC

Earlier in February was the Chocolate Splatfest in Splatoon 3! I was on Team Milk Chocolate and we lost (boo!). Team White Chocolate absolutely swept lol. Didn't expect White Chocolate to be the most popular team but oh well, I still had fun! I finally managed to win my first 100x battle! Normally, I don't play enough to trigger a 100x battle but I guess I got lucky this time. It was super exciting! I was really nervous at first, but my team ended up bullying the poor Dark Chocolate team we were against. I almost felt bad but I fought against some really tough Dark Chocolate teams so I considered that payback. I also managed to rank up to S+ right before the season ended. Woohoo!

Also played a little bit more of Stardew Valley. I made it to Year 3 and soundly passed Grandpa's assessment. I found almost all of the Golden Walnuts on the island and unlocked Mr. Qi's challenges. I also completed the island museum collection. Currently, I'm still in Spring of Year 3. Stardew Valley is a really easy game to play when I want to unwind at the end of the day. It's a pretty mindless game for me, so it's nice to just shut down my brain while playing but I'm also getting a little bored. I don't really have much left to do, aside from getting married and 100%ing the game. So, as a change of pace, I decided to check out the remastered version of Dark Souls available on the Nintendo Switch.

To my surprise, the Switch version of Dark Souls: Remastered runs surprisingly well. Is it the most optimized experience for DS1? No, but being able to play whenever on the Switch is nice. It's been years since I've played the first Dark Souls game. I surprisingly don't remember a lot so getting to re-experience the game for a second time is really fun. I decided to be a Pyromancer this time. The first time I played, I went with a default Warrior. I still pretty much play as a warrior, focusing on hacking and slashing but occasionally I'll remember to throw a fireball. Here's me meeting best boy Solaire. This time around, I think I'm going to look up a guide to figure out how to save him. He's such a delightful character. I was so sad when I had to fight him the first time around. But not this time! This time will be different and I'll save him! He's too much of a cinnamon roll to die!

After ringing the first bell tower, I messed around a bit. I wandered around for a while and found myself in the Valley of Drakes. It took a while (and by a while I mean a very long time), but I managed to fight my way through the valley and made it to the very end. Several times, the drakes glitched out and flew through the floor and died. Another time, one swooped off of the cliff, which was pretty funny. I made my way into Blighttown and remembered why I hate that place so much. After getting messed up by those annoying blowdart snipers, I cleared the small area of Blighttown accessible from the Valley of Drakes before circling back around to the New Londo Ruins. There, I remembered why I also hated the ruins (fucking ghosts!). After having enough of that nonsense, I went back to the Darkroot Basin, headed into the Darkroot Garden, and then fought my way through until I reached Sif. Wasn't having a really good time fighting him so I decided to give up for the moment and headed back to the Firelink Shrine. I went down into the Catacombs and after brute forcing my way partway through, I met Patches in all of his bald glory. Shortly after that, I decided I had enough of the Catacombs as I also hate that location (are you sensing a pattern here), and decided to head back to the Undead Burg to do what I'm actually supposed to do. I made my way through the Lower Undead Burg until I reached the Depths. I don't really remember the sewers of the Depths all that well, so I spent a lot of time wandering around. I managed to beat the Gaping Dragon in one go to unlock the way into Blighttown proper (eurgh). That's about all I've played so far. I'm not super thrilled to make my way through Blighttown, but I will eventually. I know I complained a lot, but I promise I'm having fun! Going through the beginning of Dark Souls again is pretty nostalgic. At least, for the parts that I remember lol.

Recently, Fromsoft announced DLC for Elden Ring!!!! It was a really random announcement but I'm so excited!! I was practically frothing at the mouth when it was first announced lmao. More Elden Ring is always great but I'm especially excited because it looks like the DLC will have something do with Miquella! Normally, I don't care too much about the lore of Soulsborne games but for some reason, I got really obsessed with the lore in Elden Ring, particularly for the royal demigod family. I guess I just love family drama lol. Despite their small presence, Malenia and Miquella are my favorites. I was really bummed when I learned about all of the cut content that involved them, especially Miquella. I think it's super interesting you can feel his presence throughout the game, despite him not really appearing. I'm very curious to see if Fromsoft will reimplement some of his cut content, especially his ending. It might just be me reading too much into the announcement, but I feel like it hints at that since it says "Rise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together". Regardless, I'm looking forward to it! Although, I suspect it will be some time until the DLC is released. I've seen a lot of speculation that we might not see the DLC until fall this year or even later, but I don't mind waiting!

Entry 001 - Late Dec/Jan/Feb

Rune Factory 4 Special & Stardew Valley

Recently borrowed Rune Factory 4 Special for the Switch from the library, after hearing a lot of praise for it. And I gotta say, I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping to like it more than Stardew Valley, which is currently my favorite farming sim/rpg style game. I do think the combat is better, but that's about it. RF4 has a lot more mechanics than Stardew, but I feel like the systems weren't well integrated into the gameplay. The game doesn't do a good job in explaining these systems either. You can cook, craft, and forge sooo many different items, which is neat. However, having to constantly consult the wiki to figure out what I can make and how to make it was annoying. It felt like the devs focused on quantity, not quality when it came to these systems. They existed as things you could do, but you could also completely ignore them (at least on Normal difficulty). The vast number of things you can do is probably a huge selling point for fans of the game, but I personally found it to be a little dissatisfying. I wish that the gameplay mechanics were more cohesive, so that there is a clear gameplay loop of farming → crafting → dungeon crawling etc. Instead, it was a little disjointed.

In terms of other things, I thought the characters were pretty boring. I mean, the characters in Stardew are also boring, but I guess I prefer the western style of boring characters, rather than the Japanese anime style. I can't name a single bachelor or bachelorette off the top of my head. The bachelorettes in particular were very uninteresting. They all kind of felt like that generic cutesy anime archetype. As a lesbian, I always dither on whether to play a man or a woman in games with gender-locked dating. In the end, I decided to play the female character, and I'm glad I did. I hate having to play as a man, and none of the bachelorettes interested me enough to switch. I guess my character will just be single, as the bachelors were also very dull lol. The main female character design would be fine, if it weren't for these weird nipple tassels she has on her armor. Like, what are those??? Why??

As for the story, I thought it was fine. I only played most of the first arc before I had to return my copy. I hope I don't come off as being too negative. I did overall like RF4, but I also found it disappointing. I thought the combat was more engaging than Stardew's, and liked that you could use magic. My favorite weapons were the daggers. I liked zipping around with them. I'd be interested in playing more RF4 one day, just to see where the story goes. However, playing RF4 only made me want to play Stardew, so that's what I did.


I own Stardew Valley for both PC and the Nintendo Switch. I decided to start a new save on my Switch. I have a really bad habit of restarting games after I haven't played for a while. Because of this, I rarely ever finish games lol. Anyway, I'm playing on the Forest Farm, which I almost always choose. It's the best one imo. I decided to play with the remixed bundles, just to change things up. They were surprisingly easy to finish. I think I got lucky with the ones I got. I normally pick the mushroom caves, but this time I went with fruit bats, which helped me complete the Artisan Bundle. I managed to rebuild the Community Center during Fall Year 1, which is a new record for me. Normally I don't complete it until the Winter or early Spring of Year 2. Aside from that, Year 1 passed with little to note other than me expanding my coop and barn. During the first half of Year 2, I focused on expanding my house and cleaning up the layout of my farm. Here I found a giant melon and ended the Summer of Year 2 by watching the moonlight jellies.

During the Fall, I really focused on getting Iridium to make sprinklers and expanded my farm area. Here, you can see me and my trust steed, Pony Sopran. I originally named him Pony Soprano, but on the Switch version, it doesn't tell you the character limit for names, so the 'o' got cut off. As far as I know, you can't rename your horse so Pony Sopran it is. After searching for an entire day, I finally found the strange capsule on my farm. I couldn't find it anywhere until I searched the upper corner, where it was hiding underneath the foliage near the shrine. I placed it next to my owl statue. I also finally unlocked Ginger Island. I haven't really played much since the Ginger Island update, so this was new content for me. I'm having a lot of fun exploring the island, but now I feel like I don't have enough time in the day. By the time I've finished chores around my farm and traveled to the island, it's already in the afternoon. Even when chugging espresso and eating speed boost foods, I still feel like I don't have enough time.

Fall ended quickly, and I'm currently in the Winter of Year 2. I've maxed my relationships with everyone except for Sandy and Leo. I've caught all the fish in the game and have cooked almost every recipe, except for the ones you get from Ginger Island, Sandy, and Leo. I still haven't dated anyone yet though. I'm thinking of maybe romancing Haley but like I mentioned before, I think the characters in Stardew Valley are kind of boring, so I'm pretty ambivalent towards everyone. The only other character I might romance is Alex, but that's solely because I adore his grandparents and would love to have them as my in-laws lol. But yeah, I will probably romance Haley... eventually. I was hoping to marry before Year 3 starts and the Grandpa evaluation, but I procrastinated on it so I probably won't make it before then. Even without marrying, I should easily pass his eval and get the Statue of Perfection.

Recently, I finished Birdie's quest. I like her design. Too bad she's a minor NPC so you can't really interact much with her. I finally got around to building the movie theatre. I forgot it existed so I ignored the old Joja store for a long time lol. This poor Jumino was finally able to go back home.

The last major thing I've accomplished is building the beach resort. I finally have access to all areas on the island. Right now, I'm searching for an ostrich egg to incubate while slowly clearing out the island farm. I really want to build an island obelisk to fast travel easily, but that will take time. I currently don't have any way of getting bananas to build it. I'm thinking of maybe building a third fish pond on my regular farm and filling it with Blue Discus fish to try to get bananas from them.

Like The Sims, Stardew Valley is one of those games where I get in the mood to play, play it obsessively for a few weeks, and then stop abruptly and not touch it again for like half of a year. I can feel myself losing the drive to play it. Not sure what I'll play next. I just hope that the next time I do another Stardew binge, I don't restart. Again. I always stop playing around Winter of Year 2 lol. It's a pattern I've noticed.