Month in Review – April

Well it’s time for another recap of the previous month. April was the first full month in lock down and I can’t say that I’m tired of it yet. Though fundamentally I don’t think much of my daily routine has changed. Still working most of the day, still playing video games in my spare time, etc. Anyway, you’re not here for the quarantine report, so let’s dive in.

Blog

I’m fairly pleased with how things are looking on this front. Not an exceptional month, but the number of views held consistent from March. Crossed another post off my big list of tag posts to complete, followed Quietschisto’s advice and produced one of my favourite articles this year, and also finally got my #MaybeInMarch post out. There was one other article I had hoped to get out this month, but I thought after writing four posts in April I should pump the breaks lest I push myself too hard and burn out again.

One thing that has been rolling around in the back of my mind is reviews. Specifically the lack of them on my blog as of late. The only thing I’ve written all year that vaguely resembles a review is the not a review I wrote for Yakuza 0. And if we’re being honest, while my intention wasn’t to write a review that is certainly what the post reads like. The lack of reviews has been bugging me a bit, though the reason I’ve not written many is two fold. Firstly, they’re not nearly as fun to write, and thus not as enjoyable to read, as some of my other posts. Secondly, I’ve beaten very few games so far this year. So with a general lack of enthusiasm for writing reviews, and fewer games being played relative to last year the reviews poofed. I dunno. Maybe I’ll actually write a couple of those in the coming weeks if I can manage to finish the handful of games I’m plugging away at presently.

Slay the Spire

Given my recent post on the game, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I put quite a few more hours into Slay the Spire this month. I think with said post and finally managing to conquer ascension ten I can bookend my most recent stint with the game. I may or may not come back to it again in future. The over a hundred hours of play time I’ve sunk into Slay the Spire was well worth it though.

Fantasy Strike

Alright. This is probably going to be the most exciting part of the post, at least for me it is. As I said last time I’ve been playing Fantasy Strike in the Wednesday night weekly tourneys that Toronto Top Tiers has been hosting online during the quarantine. Much to my surprise, I’ve managed to place in the top eight every single week. Usually we’re playing a sixteen person bracket, so that means I’m placing in the top half rather than the bottom half. Though my biggest victory was coming fourth one week. That week many of my matches were extremely close, which made for an incredibly exciting tournament.

Despite the success, I still clearly have a lot of learning to do. The really good players (which I am not one of) who enter the weeklies still absolutely destroy me as if I’ve never played the game before. I suppose that’s not a bad thing as always having something new to reach for helps to keep a game engaging, but I can’t quite articulate how frustrating it is to lose to the exact same subset of people every single week without showing any discernible improvement. There’s always next week.

Felix the Reaper

Here’s a game I didn’t have enough to say about to fill a review with. It’s a short puzzle game I played with Mir. You play as Felix and have to adjust objects in the environment plus change the orientation of the sun so that you’re able to safely move through the shadows while you setup Rube Goldberg style deaths for NPCs. It’s a neat concept and the game lasts exactly long enough to explore it without outstaying its welcome.

While my experience was mostly positive, there was two things that bugged me about the experience. Firstly the mouse controls were a bit fiddly. I’d usually run into issues trying to place objects in the environment. This wasn’t a huge issue given the game doesn’t require any ultra precise inputs, but I did find it a bit annoying. Secondly was the story. The whole time things are built up as though they’re going somewhere, but in the end the story amounts to a sequel teaser. Even though the story wasn’t the focus of the game I still wasn’t appreciative of that.

THE LONGING

Here’s a weird one. THE LONGING is a point and click adventure that takes place in real time. You control a shade, the lone servant to a king who must rest for four hundred days in order to recover his powers. As it runs in real time you can, in theory, leave THE LONGING closed and return after the four hundred days to complete your assignment. Alternatively you can explore the various caves and solve a few light puzzles. By doing so you’ll likely find objects that you can add to the shade’s housing hole which will dramatically speed up how fast time flows while the shade is home. It’s a game where the main mechanic is testing your patience.

Given my general impatience I’m quite surprised that I don’t dislike THE LONGING. While I don’t regret the time I’ve spent with it I have mostly run out of stuff to do and that has been true since about the sixty day mark. I helped the shade expand its home, built it a bed, planted a garden, and filled said home with the finest collection of art and books. The shade is living life in style, but after trolling through the caves of THE LONGING so thoroughly I ran out of reasons to regularly check in. So while I was engaged for a time I feel like there could have been a bit more content for the long haul. Kim from Later Levels wrote a post that details the various different endings of the game, all of which I’d discovered during my time exploring the caves. I’m still in it for the long haul though. I will see the king awoken after four hundred days.

Virgo Versus the Zodiac

Similar to Slay the Spire, I wrote a post on my time with Virgo already so I’ll keep this short. For someone who tends to not enjoy JRPGs I really enjoyed Virgo. It kept combat snappy and engaging, which is regularly what kills my enthusiasm for a lot of RPGs. That and the overarching story really helped to push me through to the end of this one. It’s well worth checking out.

Murder By Numbers

I’ve been playing Murder by Numbers with Mir and I think this might be one I do as a shorter review sometime in May. It’s a blend between picross and a visual novel. The overarching story sees you playing as Honor Mizrahi and SCOUT as you solve various murder mysteries. I’ve seen a lot of favourable comparisons to Ace Attorney, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. For my money it is more of a picross game with a story. You spend the overwhelming majority of your time doing picross with the story informing why you’re doing the picross instead of things being the other way around. That doesn’t make it bad, but I think that does make the comparison to Ace Attorney a bit disingenuous.

Anyway, look for a review in May…probably.

Animal Crossing New Horizons

As I announced on twitter, Mir finally relinquished control of the Switch so I’m allowed to play Animal Crossing New Horizons. I’m a long time series fan who has been playing these games since the first one released on the Gamecube in North America and New Leaf, the previous entry, was my favourite game in the series by a country mile.

Aside: You all know what’s about to come don’t you?

I really don’t like New Horizons. At least, I’ve not been able to enjoy it the same way I enjoyed all of the previous entries. The crafting and resource collecting makes the game unbelievably tedious and constantly interrupts what I’m doing and reminds me that I’m playing a video game when I just want to peacefully, and mindlessly fish for a couple of hours.

There are also a number of really strange changes which I’d say act as steps backwards when compared to the older games. I loaded up my New Leaf save to verify I wasn’t misremembering how things were and can now say with confidence that New Horizons actively took steps backwards in terms of player convenience.

Why isn’t the item I’m actively using equipped on my character and removed from my inventory space?

Why can’t dressers/closets/fridges be used for storage when you’re stuck in a tent?

Why can’t turnips be stored?

These are three things that are all true in New Leaf, but aren’t true in New Horizons. You do get access to storage once you upgrade your house from a tent, but the amount of storage is rather limited when compared against the generous amount you get in New Leaf. I’m assuming that as my house improves so too will the amount I can store, but this change alongside the others is just bizarre.

You can call me a grumpy old man, but I feel like Nintendo got a free pass on New Horizons. I’ve only played for about eight to ten hours, so that’s a drop in the bucket for the amount of time it’ll take to really sink my teeth into the game, but I feel like the longer I play the more I’m going to be disappointed. We’ll see how I feel after I finish constructing the fortress of solitude on the Northern half of the map.

Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment

Mir also bought Shovel Knight at some point on the Switch, so I’ve been playing through the remaining two dlc campaigns I never got around to on the Wii U. First up was Specter of Torment and I feel about it the same as I felt about the Plague Knight dlc: I didn’t care for it. By all rights it is fine. I just have a thing where I really don’t like when I can’t bop enemies on the head while playing a platforming game. At least the Specter Knight campaign makes it easy to look cool while playing. I’m hoping the final campaign staring King Knight is a little more up my alley, but you’ll have to wait until next month’s wrap up post to find out.

One Step From Eden

I have a lot to say about this game. It’s getting its own post.

For now enjoy this silly thing I tweeted out.

Hollow Knight

And finally Hollow Knight. Not much to say here. I’ve been replaying the game as part of a weekly Friday Night stream. I’ve been enjoying replaying it. Plus having company in the Twitch chat including, but not limited to: Gaming Diaries, Kim and Pete from Later Levels, Quietschisto from RNG, Dan from nowisgames, and Jett from In Third Person makes it an even more lovely experience. Though it probably helps that the lot of them continually praise me as some kind of platforming Jesus regardless of how many times I bungle the odd couple jumps.

Community

Here’s five of my favourite posts from April written by other members of the community. If you haven’t already checked them out you should.

Extra Life – A Rebuttal to James Whitbrook: Our Fascination With Canon Is Not Killing the Way We Value Stories

Agoners – Euro Fantasy Strike Players Series: #6 – Arnei

A Geeky Gal – 6 Ways I’m Coping With Self Isolation

Time to Loot – Difficulty of a Different Kind

Everything is Bad for You – Why Aren’t Visual Novels More Popular in the West?

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Ho boy. I knew that was going to be long, but I didn’t realize how long. I finished three games over the last thirty days, but didn’t realize how much time I’ve been splitting between various titles. No wonder if feels like I haven’t gotten anything done…

Anyway, if you actually continued reading this far: thank you. It was a weird month. Full of some high points and some low points. Hopefully next month I’ll have that one mystery post out, alongside a review or two, and another tag post.