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Cake day: December 22nd, 2023

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  • More Baldurs Gate 3 in coop with a friend. We’re in the Underdark, gonna kill some Dwarves next time and Gnome and probably everything. We’re just complete murderhobos.

    Then I heard about Vampire Hunters, which is kinda Vampire Survivors, but as an FPS. It’s fun and there are a few more maps to beat, but I don’t know if it’s going to have as much staying power as some of these other games I’ve played.

    Also, more Metroidvanias. I played through Elderand, and don’t think it’s very good. For some reason, I got lost and didn’t know where to go at some point, which I don’t remember ever happening with another game. It turned out to be a way up some platforms I just missed, but it took a lot of time with me just running around, until I looked at a video playthrough. Even if that’s just a skill issue on my end, some of the other parts, aren’t that good either. The map seems to be a bit inconsistent, which didn’t help finding the correct way. Combat is extremely repetitive, with every melee weapon having the same three-hit combo, even dual-wield daggers or a whip. There’s a crafting system for potions and upgrades, but it’s useless, because basically no materials drop. Definitely do not recommend this one.

    I decided to buy Ender Magnolia, the follow-up to Ender Lilies, which is currently in Early Access. There’s not a lot to do right now, it took me a bit under two hours to get through everything, but it’s fun. Definitely wait for the full release though, unless you want to pre-order this game or something.

    Finally, I also got Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. It’s much bigger than the other metroidvanias I played recently. I’m almost 20 hours in and about halfway done. It plays well and I gotta say, I really like the feature to take a picture, so you can see where you missed something and don’t just go back 20 times, just to realize you can’t get there yet. Combat against regular enemies can be a bit boring, since enemies are a bit spongy. Bosses are neat though, especially since you have a parry and interrupting boss moves feels great. There’s also a ton of platforming, which can get really tricky. The story is complete garbage and makes no sense, but whatever. The game is kinda expensive, but I got it on sale, which was fine. Since it’s an Ubisoft game, it’s probably going to be on sale for -75% in a few months.

    Rant: Why are some of these metroidvanias so stingy with their fast travel? In Prince of Persia and Animal Well you can only travel to specific points of the map, although in Animal Well you could at least get to the teleporters from anywhere on the map. In Prince of Persia, you need to find the teleporter, to get someplace else, which can get really annoying. Just let me travel to and from every save point. Even Elderand, for all its faults, lets you do this. In Prince of Persia, in the DLC area you can actually teleport between save points, probably since they realized the other system sucks.


  • I love 2D platformers, especially metroidvanias. Some of my favorite ones (not just metroidvanias) are Battleblock Theater, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight and the Ori games.

    I also think 3D Platforming sucks, so I try to avoid games, where this is the main gameplay. I’ve played some, like Portal or Grow Home, which I thought were good, but you probably won’t ever catch me playing some 3D collectathons or something.












  • Finished HROT. It’s a good game, like I said last week, it’s basically Quake. I started on the Hard difficulty, played through the first episode, but turned it down for the others, because I wanted more run-and-gun and not creeping around corners, because enemies kill me in two shots.

    Then I also played through Animal Well. A great looking metroidvania, where you don’t fight, it’s more about avoiding enemies or scaring them away. I saw credits after less than six hours, but then spend another eight searching for secrets. I needed help from a guide for the last couple, to get to the credits the second time, for the second ending. There’s some more stuff to find, maybe a third or true ending, but I don’t really care enough to do that.

    I also decided to check out Rain World, but I’m not really sure about this one. For some reason, the game resolution is 768p, which scales with nothing. This means, unless you play on a cheap or old laptop, that uses that resolution, the game will be blurry (or a tiny window). There isn’t even a x2 scaling option or something. Luckily there is a mod fixes this, but it’s still baffling, that this is even needed. Like Animal Well, it’s also a game, where fighting isn’t really the focus (although you can to some extent), but most of the time I was fighting the controls. I’ll give it a bit more time next week, but unless it suddenly clicks with me, I’ll skip this one.

    Since I’m in the mood for some metroidvanias right now, I played through another one, Haiku, the Robot. It’s a pretty cookie cutter medroidvania, not bad, but also doesn’t do anything special. You find abilities, like a double jump, short teleport, morphball, stuff like that. There’s also a system like the Charms in Hollow Knight to enhance certain parts of your skill set. I usually like pixel art graphics, but I really didn’t vibe with the enemy design, and everything else is once again pretty basic.

    Earlier in the week I started Remnant II with a friend, but the beginning was really rough, so much so, that I don’t know if we’ll continue. The levels and bosses are randomized to some extent, so depending on your luck you might get easier or harder bosses. Our first boss (or event) was pretty terrible. We had to run down a tower, while we were chased by lighting (but also couldn’t be too fast, because of more lightning), and had to shoot some stuff in the middle of the tower, all while enemies spawned. The worst part about this “boss” was that basically everything, except the enemies, was a one-shot death. I was terrible at this and constantly failed, but we eventually made it through. The next couple of bosses were better, but not by much. Who knows if we’ll ever get back to this one.

    Then the same friend and me started a coop Baldurs Gate 3 run today. I guess we’re doing an evil run, since he picked Dark Urge and we’re going to raid the grove next time. I played through the game once, around the time of the 1.0 release, and wanted to do an evil playthrough anyway eventually, so this is fine with me.



  • since for whatever reason ancestral items don’t drop that often for me, and the last thing I have to do is salvage 100 of them. It might have to do with the Torment level I’m on

    I’m on Torment 4 and yeah, they don’t drop a lot. If you’re on a high enough difficulty, Ancestral Uniques probably drop more, since you can farm the Uber bosses, who basically only drop uniques. I think that objective was the second to last one I finished for the journey (the last are the 5 Helltide Commanders, which I don’t probably won’t do).