The Backbloggery

I think it's a shame that typically there is so much more to say about media you don't enjoy, but... when one element slips, it's often then a cascade of problems caused by losing patience with existing issues that you were willing to let slide for the sake of a whole experience that hadn't yet lost you.

I've kinda had a soft spot for crafting in games for a while, but games that make a point of centering crafting of equipment are kinda few and far between. it's often viewed as tedious, or detracting from The Good Bit of the game, where you actually use the gear you're making. frankly, I think this is both a failure on the part of the designer to make interesting crafting systems in the bigger games where this opinion is born, and at least a slight failure on the part of the average player to find value in things that aren't The Main Gameplay Loop the writing in this game is really loose, leaving it feeling like it's not really too concerned with being taken 100% seriously, but still uses the light-hearted beats to have some meaningful character moments... despite the localization feeling stiff. diving into the dungeon and finding scrap to repurpose as generic raw material to make weapons was a lot of fun! some of the respite pacing was a little janky, and there wer

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on june 30, 2024] none of the rest of my games are going to be bad. none of them are going to be bad! none of them are going to be harsh disappointments failing my optimistic vibe checks! I'm going to play 13 more games and I'm going to enjoy them over the rest of this year! RIGHT? RIGHT?! shining resonance refrain was a video game that seemed charming in a sort of knock-off Tales way, but didn't get localized on its home platform of the PS3, and instead it took until it got a then-current-generation port for the ps4, xbox one, and windows before it got an english release. I kinda wish it stayed japan-only. it's a slog of a video game with writing that would appeal more to me, a lover of mediocre light novel adaptations, as a 13-episode anime than it did as a video game they had to space out with a horrendous experience curve. by the time I hit the 1.5 hour mark, the game expected about 45 minutes of grinding

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on july 12, 2024] this one was played in a blitz of like two days because I knew it would be relatively quick, I would enjoy it, and by getting all its achievements I'd hit precisely the 34 achievements I'd need to have 8,000 achievements on my steam profile with 69 perfect games anyway, irrespective of that weird itch of mine, this was a really enjoyable time! it has a few meta mechanical gimmicks that made me laugh when they came up, and the worst of the jumpscare/thriller horror sections are pretty frontloaded before it becomes more of a horrific mystery adventure game; the weaving of multiple protagonists' timelines and priorities together works really well. there's quite a few solid reveals and the ending was pretty satisfying for me, even having predicted it. it's a fun exploration of the way history and historical tragedies are turned into urban legends, as well!

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on july 8, 2024] little kitty, big city is one of those cute short wholesome games (that inexplicably takes place in a japanese city (for the purposes of aesthetic I presume but it's still weird from an american indie team, as the discussion around "wholesome games" borrowing bits of japanese culture points out)) and it's one of those! it's cute, it's short, it's wholesome, there's a few quests to follow instead of just going directly for all the stamina upgrades you need to get back home. not a whole lot to talk about here, to be honest, but I had a good time with it nonetheless  

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on june 30, 2024] there is so little I can reasonably say in a single post about final fantasy xiv, or even just this expansion, to encapsulate my experiences with the game. to elucidate on what I get out of this game every time it launches a new expansion and the brainworms reignite would take an immense amount of rambling that doesn't really fit the format of this blog. I really enjoyed dawntrail. I'm going to continue enjoying this game for a long while, I think, barring some serious problems with it. I might have a more spoilery post about it later when I've had more time to chew on it and also it isn't The Third Day It's Even Out.

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on june 10, 2024] y'know, I bought this basically sight unseen a day after it came out (april 28th, 2020) and I have genuinely been meaning to play it since then, despite really feeling like it was going to be an earnest coin flip between tiring trash and genuinely good game it's good! not for everyone but it's pretty fun and I'm gonna 100% it sakura wars, as a franchise, has been one of those things I was always kind of aware of but never felt strongly enough about to get into. there was the ps2 entry, so long, my love , which was, to my knowledge, not very well received by diehard fans of the series; however, those diehard fans were playing the first four games in japanese back in the day. there's been translation efforts now, and I might go look for them, honestly, because good grief, the character moments in this game are strong. the move from turn-based tactics to musou-adjacent action game is bafflin

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on may 29, 2024] for the first time in a while, I truly just do not understand what the writers of a game thought they were doing. I know what they think they were going for, but every tiring step of this game's plot is flimsily justified in ways that feel even more hollow than I expected. at the game's outset, the idea that a group of people could manipulate a nation into going to war to satisfy their personal vendetta against the emperor seemed truly absurd, but I was willing to see how they managed to justify it. they didn't even try. the idea that these five young adults would be sacrificing themselves at the end of the war to atone for their complicity in the bloodshed was also somewhat compelling. assuming, of course, they could actually explain how this would sate the populace or the state. they tried! but it makes no goddamn sense. the final gambit is going "actually, we started the war because of thes

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on may 23, 2024] this game is infuriating. eminently breakable, and infuriating. I'm gonna be bitching under the cut, dead dove etc the partner who I burdened with the weight of playing kingdom hearts is mostly being a good sport about this but I feel bad. about making them play this game with its myriad shortcomings of design after they suffered khfm and its own cocktail of painful Bits, especially if you, as they did, try to get all the annoying trophies in one run. playing through kingdom hearts final mix on proud, without changing equipment, without being allowed to simply continue if you lose a fight, and suffering the painfully doubled damage that proud pointlessly inflicts to do the endgame grinding, even once you can swap equipment, is not how people typically fondly remember kh1. they remember playing the original game on normal! without a bunch of extra challenges tacked on! achievements/trophies are a problem, a

[archived from a cohost post, originally made on may 20, 2024] we talked about wild arms 2 on the podcast so I'm not gonna make a big post about it. I made my points about the game fairly well on the episode, I think. game's good! I love it enough that I am genuinely considering writing a more comprehensive and accurate walkthrough than exists among the several I used to replay it