Let’s continue this new tradition. It gives me a chance to talk about the things that have been spinning in my game systems lately, if for no other reason than to keep me focused in my writing over the next few weeks.
As with last time, let’s start with games I’ve been playing and some general thoughts on each experience.
Celeste – Chapter 9, baby. Chapter 9. Damn, these screens are hard. At the time of this writing, I’m probably about 70-percent of the way through. It’s amazing. The team could have phoned it in with just a few additional hard screens, and we would have been happy. Instead, they went the extra mile and extended the story into some wild places. It’s hard to talk about the chapter without spoiling some of the surprises, but if you were on the fence about whether to reinstall the game and download the expansion, let me tell you: it is worth it whole-heartedly. It’s difficult. Don’t be afraid to turn on accessibility features if you’d need them, because experiencing the story and atmosphere is really, really worth your time.
Hollow Knight – I’m still really enjoying this game, but it gets exhausting. I think I am on the fourth or fifth section, and I have hit a wall on a boss. I’m hoping to finish this one out fairly quickly, but I do have to take a break every now and then, which brings us to the next game on the list.
The Adventure Pals – A few weeks back, I was just feeling tired of playing really, really hard games. I decided that I wanted to just play a fun, colorful platformer. So I tried this one. I ended up binging it and beating it over about three days. It helped reinvigorate me considerably, which is really all I wanted.
Final Fantasy XV – Labor Day weekend was an interesting time for me. My wife went to New York City with a friend for the entire long weekend, so it was just me and the dog at home. I decided to move my PS4 upstairs to plug it directly into the cable modem, because the wifi connection is shit in my basement. Once upstairs, I decided to try and stream over the network to my laptop, which turned out to work better than expected. I sank about 20 hours into the game over the weekend to finish it up. I actually wrote down some thoughts over here if you want to read them.
What’s coming up?
This month, I intend to continue on through a lot of what I wrote about last month. These are all longer games, so I usually spend a little bit of time on each one throughout the month until it grips me and I feel compelled to just knock it out.
JumpJet Rex – So, my PC controller died. I started getting the phantom inputs on the d-pad, so I had to buy a new one. I chose the 8bitdo SN30 Pro+, which is a cumbersome name, but cool controller. I’m hoping to really drop some time into this over the next few weeks and really put the controller through it’s paces.
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim – I have no idea why I’m so intent on sticking with these simulation games. Maybe it’s a false sense of hope that I can actually get good at them? Maybe?
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So, what about you? Anything caught your fancy lately?