Lurker > AriaOfBolo

Rain Ch. 39-40: Lotta nice-but-rough bits about healing, which is par for the course I suppose. Also a cute weeb date to the bookstore!

STEAM BATTEL FINALS

Touhou: Got Kogasa and what I need to get Rumia, woo. Also have Youmu's sword if I can find her again! We will be going by my usual procedure of about 3 parts character preference and 1 part meta, meaning for now it's gonna be Momiji/Reimu/Kogasa/Marisa/hope the enemies don't attack us back.

Fate: Got rolled trying to redo a battle to grind, got rolled harder by Iskandar on the current level. Gets a bit laggy and hard to follow when more is happening (ie at the times I am most likely to need to play well)

THE VERDICT: It was a coinflip going into the match but I think Labyrinth of Touhou takes it. Fate gameplay is a bit less fun with me struggling with camera and difficulty. It also loses out by a hair on accessibility- Touhou I could play over my lunch break, Fate really needs two hands and full attention. Characters, aesthetics, story are all kinda a push, and I do very much appreciate that Fate has voice acting but....not quite enough. Close, but it's TOUHOU O'CLOCK Y'ALL

Touhou o'clock y'all: Have done a buncha floor 2 and started on 3!

(next topic I think will be called the Bolopic, FYI)

STEAM BATTEL

#14 2064 ROM: Got to the bar, which was kinda cute. It let me input not just my name but my pronouns and my *diet*, which stuff like that is not a huge deal but it's always an appreciated lil' touch. I like the character designs in this game, and the vibe in general I think. It will take me a million hours to finish because I gotta click all the things and do all the interactions!

#11 Monster Prom: I have a better idea what I'm doing now! .....Still not enough to get a good end though.

THE VERDICT: I think Monster Prom will wear out with me before I get many of the endings and such, especially if I can't manage to get a date. 2064 is more my vibe anyway I think!

Semifinals are WoL v. Fate and Touhou v. ROM! Think at this point it'll come down to Fate and Touhou, but I've been wrong before.

#12 West of Loathing: Cleaned up a few more gangs and other sidequests! Think I'm close to out of things to do before I investigate the railroad, but I do wanna figure out the El Vibrato thing and I couldn't figure out what to do with the backside of the Potemkin lair.

#5 Fate/Extella: Beat Tamamo, guess I'm done right? lol It's kinda funny having met most of these people in F/GO first, on top of not having played the predecessors. Curious where this is going, not that I expect it to make tons of sense. Also, Altera is good civilization.

THE VERDICT: Rematch of the century lol. My opinions on both...haven't really changed since the first round. WoL is still a game I quite wanna play, and might be my "turn my brain off and screw around" unofficial winner, but it still comes up short of the power of beloved established IPs.

#2 Labyrinth of Touhou: Slowly but surely progressing. Think I can get Youmu if I remember where she is, and I also think I can get to the next floor if I wanna skip all the stuff here. But I want more people to rotate, first!

#14 2064 ROM: Went to the park and the PD for the first time. Lexi seems pretty cool, much like literally every character I have met. I felt bad messing with the water ROM D:

THE VERDICT: As attached as I am to Turing and all the little details and such, I think this is where the Cinderella run ends. It'll be Fate v. Touhou in the finals, the battle of the blorbos!

Aria 3-9- Surrounded By That Orange Wind...: Alice graduates from....middle school, maybe? IDK. Kinda funny seeing her as a cool senpai everybody crushes on. She does roleplay training with Athena and finally masters the missing piece of singing. They double promote her, dang! That might do some interesting things to the cast's dynamic, going from the youngun of the bunch to the superior in a blink.

STEAM BATTEL
#2 Labyrinth of Touhou: I think this makes the finals a lot more easily than its opponent, but I've been wrong before. Got a good chunk farther this time! Also starting to get a team capable of handling the enemies, some of them are pretty rough!

#7 moon: Got a bunch of stuff done! And died, not saving half of it. The corpses aren't very fun.

THE VERDICT: I like the ideas of moon but boy howdy do I hate the action limit system where you just have to guess whether you can do something and still be able to get home before you game over. Would be a close call without that, but as it is, Touhou wins handily.

Hades: Couple decent runs that died in Asphodel. But I was able to get some upgrades for next time, as well as my first Duo boon!

Hades: I have met and beaten the other Fates, and gotten all(?) the weapons! Still kinda feel like I'm hitting a wall, but at least the wall is farther in the run than it used to be.

Emma: Had to return the audiobook, but not before Mr. Knightley confessed. But Harriet D:

We watched Turning Red, and enjoyed it! I vibed with the whole friend group.

STEAM BATTEL

#4 Monster Crown: Had to grind just a shred, which is troubling this early. Did eventually get past the boss walling me (and had a brain fart and didn't think to try to recruit it) to the first town. Caught a wild crossbreed, which is fun too- I think it's a cross between two monsters like I will theoretically be able to breed myself eventually. Hints of some darker, creepier undertones, which might not be my fave. Still feels a bit like a tutorial part of the game, but at least I'm not stuck on the same two screens anymore! And I got my not-Pokedex, too. Why, someday I might even actually learn the not-element cycle!

#5 Fate/Extella: Still a lot of fun, still a dang lot of buttons and mechanics to remember, still slightly (but only slightly) clunky on a keyboard. I appreciate that there was a Lu Bu for me to not pursue. And Nero can be a magical girl now, or something! I had to look up how the series works again (c'mon Nasu I bet you could make this a bit more confusing if you tried) and it looks like this is indeed a sequel....but I'm not likely to track down the OG so oh well? The protag doesn't remember what happened and I sure as heck don't either, guess we're square. I feel like some of the mechanics actually work better than proper musou games? Like the teleporting between regions, and the skill system.

THE VERDICT: This is the match to watch this round, possibly even the true finals, and I still haven't made up my mind at time of writing. Fate wins on characters and vibe, Monster Crown wins on ease of play, not sure on story or gameplay. ....I guess looking at that, written out, I gotta give it to Fate/Extella. I've got Extella Link sitting around waiting to play anyway, I guess!

Watched Soul! I didn't know Pixar could whiff, or that you could make a movie ostensibly about jazz and a guy who teaches it that I wouldn't like, but....I got bored about halfway through and they never got me back. Too much existential whatever, not enough jazz, too much whining, not enough respect for teachers, too much talking about jazz, too little anything actually to do with jazz. Bummer.

Hades: Got all the way up to Theseus+Asterios (and died)! Shield+Doom seems hard to beat. I have been advised that I have enough Contractor stuff for now and should focus more on the mirror and getting the last weapon. (Incidentally, I don't get the point of the Fists)

STEAM BATTEL

#12 West of Loathing: Lots of sidequests to run and loacations to explore! Got my first couple losses at the Sub-Mission. Still fun! I don't think there are gonna be any surprises here, positive or negative. Both this and Monster Prom are in a boat where I know what I'm getting and it's not super likely to be enough to win the whole bracket, but all the other games still have pretty low floors so you never know.

#8 Chicory: Got to meet Chicory herself! We're doing a depression thing I guess, which my mental health is a lot better than it used to be but isn't my first choice of angles, particularly with my character just kinda running over her.

THE VERDICT: On paper I like Chicory but it ain't quite grabbing me in execution, save for the vibe. WoL with likely the easiest win of the round.

Hades: Just one run today but I beat Meg again! I gotta remember Cast exists, I have buffs to it in the mirror, and this run Artemis' Cast was the star of the build.

Vampire Survivors: I haven't updated in a while but I do some runs here and there. I can *actually* win most runs and beat(?) the game and have almost maxed out the Powerups, wooo. Haven't gotten to try Boss Rash yet tho, and I'm one away from 100 in the Collection. Mad Groove is pretty great.

Pokemon Snap: Got the Maricopa Illuminorb, with the help of an FAQ. Ran all the courses once with it, didn't get a whole ton. Bet I have to actually get Jellicent (or whatever is lurking back there) to progress, but that might be tricky.

STEAM BATTEL
#6 Untitled Goose Game: I just love the aesthetics here, it FEELS like a goose somehow. Almost beat what I assume to be the first level, but I couldn't quite manage the radio and I don't know where a basket is, and right before I ended he found all my stuff and started moving it back from my picnic :( Trickier than expected! But fun.

#11 Monster Prom: I've dabbled in this one before, so I have a decent idea what I'm getting into. I was actually able to get a whole (short) run in, lol. Went for Miranda, got shot down. :( From the ending stats it looks like there's a whole heck of a lot more game to see though, which is a plus. Also I remember it being more PG-13 than this >_> Also dang they're coming out with a third one now!

THE VERDICT: I like both, hm. Goose I feel like I'm gonna get frustrated with at some point, Monster I feel like is not actually gonna have that much length to it. ....Let's go Monster Prom, losing there was fun while we left the Goose on the low point of having my stuff reset.

That makes the round 2 bracket:
(12 West of Loathing) v. 8 Chicory
4 Monster Crown v. 5 Fate/Extella
2 Labyrinth of Touhou v. 7 moon
14 2064: ROM v. 11 Monster Prom
which....I feel like is pretty wide open, actually? Usually by now I have a decent idea how the rest is gonna go, but I can see three solid contenders (Touhou, Fate, Monster Crown) and a few more games that could still surprise me or get lucky.

Hades: I got to Elysium with a Shield+Doom on Special build! And now I am back to being unable to beat Meg.

STEAM BATTEL

#3 Stellaris: I don't know why I expected this to not be like a Paradox game, but it sure is! They are traditionally appealing but tend to be a bit over my head. Why do I need an account and a launcher and fifty terms to agree to, tho. The tutorial is a bit sparse (and covers up some of the options) but at least it works. I feel like this one is gonna be a bit more accessible than the EUs and the CKs? But it's still very much a chuck into the deep end and have fun with your giant map and thirty submenus.

#14 2046 Read Only Memories: Cyberpunk ain't super my thing for settings but I do consistently like the aesthetic, seems to hold here. Points for a Strong Bad reference right off the bat, loses em for how clunky it is to interact with stuff (did the different apps really need both a "look at" and "use"?) I pack bonded with Turing in about 0.2 seconds.

THE VERDICT: Honestly I wasn't in an ideal headspace for either of these games, shoulda saved it for another night. I....think Turing might actually be the decision point. Both games were a bit slow out of the gate, but I wanna figure out what's going on with Turing and our friend more than I want to make sure I get a mining station set up the next galaxy over to acquire more resources that I don't know what I need them for. First upset of the tourney!

Hades, but on Switch: This is more like it! Lost to Meg a few times, lost before Meg a few times. Got a few weapons, close to everything I can (reasonably) get from the Mirror at this point. Just gotta figure out when and how hard I can punish Meg's attacks! Early faves are Cerberus and Dusa as characters, and Zeus for boons. Hyped to play this but now I have FOUR games between Switch and 3DS and I try to keep that at two lol.

STEAM BATTEL

#7 moon: I expected odd, and that is indeed what I got! It seems very ahead of its time, with the funky graphics and day/night system with NPCs that move around and such. I am not entirely sure about the execution so far. My dude moves kinda slow, the menus are clunky, and I don't think I like this action limit system at all. Game overed once not understanding it, and a second time thinking that I could walk around without using energy. Jury's out still but at least it's interesting!

#10 Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Complete Edition: Mouthful, innit. I went with what appears to be the basic story as opposed to Hacker's Memory or whatever. It took dang 45 minutes for me to get a Palmon. Just a lotta kinda boring exposition. The gameplay and graphics look fun but boy howdy is this a slow open even by RPG standards. Feels like they took .hack, reluctantly slapped on some Digimon, and thought they did something.

THE VERDICT: Ehhhh, both of them are in the same boat of feeling like I need another hour to really feel like I have a handle of the meat of things. I even went a good bit past my normal half hour for both! Kinda a tossup, but I feel like moon has a slightly lower floor but a slightly higher ceiling. I think we'll go with moon, as I suspect the only way either of these gets Touhou is if they hit that ceiling.

Les Mis: Lotta good stuff about revolutions in general.

STEAM BATTEL: So hey, I was talking about Hades with friends and they gave me their extra copy for Switch! That will work a dang lot better than trying to muddle through on PC lol. So I think it'll be next up in the rotation and get taken out of the field here. I'll replace it with my favorite game to lose round 1, I think! So far that's West of Loathing.

#2 Labyrinth of Touhou: This is another one I kinda know what I'm getting into! I played a very legal version way back in the day before they started caring about Touhou in English. Although I'm wondering if this is a sequel or something, it's been a while but like I don't remember this being my starting party. Anyway, fun dungeon crawling with touhous and lots of party building. No surprises, will be a tough one to beat. Did one run, got Momiji and not much else before getting dunked by...some squirrels?

#15 GNOG: This is not the vibe I thought it was gonna be. I see the appeal but it's not my thang I think. Did like a level and a half. Do like the colors though!

The Verdict: Labyrinth of Touhou pretty darn easily.

STEAM BATTEL
#4 Monster Crown: I have been waiting for this one for a long time- I backed it a long dang time ago, and it's been out for a bit but needed to work up the long backlog list. The day has come! It's a Pokemonlike with some twists, the main one being procedural breeding that creates new species. It looks like there's a built-in randomizer, too, but I'll mess with the vanilla game first. This might actually be one to watch, with a long hype period behind it, no need for fancy controls, and somebody's twitter thread about a pokemon fusion mod whetting my appetite to Frankenstein up some mons. I got through the tutorial-y part, but not much farther. It's definitely a bit janky, and the battle system will take some getting used to, but...it has potential. I'll need to get farther before making a good call on it, but it has a small hook in me already. I can't even articulate what specifically has me excited, I think it just scratches an itch that mainline Pokemon hasn't in a year or two. Collect dudes. Cultivate them. Smoosh em together into weirder dudes. Heck yeah. It's also just one of those projects that is clearly a labor of love, the person just kept coming up with cool little features to add. Did any of them actually work out? We'll see, maybe.

#13: A Hat In Time: Dang, this is super cute! Dang, this is another one where my controller is useless! I got it all set up and then it started spinning the camera uncontrollably, so back to keyboard (and trackpad) I went. Didn't have enough buttons anyway, and my computer was struggling a bit trying to run it. Died to the first enemy I tried to fight.

THE VERDICT: Hat In Time is right up my alley, but it ain't particularly playable with my current setup. A bummer, but an easy choice for the "watch an LP instead" pile. Man I thought the controllers were gonna make some of those viable again. :\ But hey, now I get a chance to evaluate Monster Crown a bit more thoroughly!

#5 Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star: I like Fate a lot, I like Nero a lot, I like Musou a lot. None of that's gonna matter if I can't play......but I can! I didn't immediately see keybind options so I just went keyboard, and...it's fine! It's not great, but it's fine! Probably wouldn't have had enough buttons on the controller anyway. Oddly, the gameplay was fine but the opening cinematic had some lag issues. Nero is....very Nero, the vibe is fun, and I can mow people down. I have no idea what is going on in the story (is this not the first game, I'm guessing?) but it's Fate, does anybody ever have any idea what is going on in the story? Played one level, and this will be a strong contender.

#12 West of Loathing: Man this takes me back, I was never SUPER into Kingdom of Loathing but I do dust off my account every couple years or so. This is....exactly the same artstyle and sense of humor, and only slightly fancier gameplay. I liked it then, I like it now. Got to the first town and did a couple small sidequests. I'm playin' a Beanmancer and I took Susie as my pardner. Also the dark horse. Exactly the experience I expected, and hey no control issues.

The Verdict: First tough one. I think Fate/Extella has a SLIGHT edge (read: I'm a Nero fangirl) and also I think West of Loathing might work just as well as a "screw around for a few minutes before bed" game as a formally put in my rotation game.

(This is not gonna be the pace I do the rest of this tournament, probably >_>)

STEAM BATTEL
#1 Hades: I have wanted to play this for a long time (and got to mess with it at a friend's house) and I'm psyched! The issue with this and most real-time games is I don't have a good control setup- I don't have a good place to put a mouse, and my trackpad kinda sucks. (see also: I had to bail on Stardew) But thanks to randomizers and such, I have started using controllers! I got mock SNES and N64 USB controllers as a wedding gift, and although I initially couldn't get them working, that appears to have just been the game I tried 'em with. I do generally need to rebind a lot of stuff though, because defaults are always very creatively mapped. Hades needs like one more button than I have, but oh well? It's still a good time even if I have to stop and think every time I encounter a menu. I....suspect this won't work for high level play, though. Got to chamber 8. Liking it as expected, but I think the controls could wind up hamstringing its chances.

#16 WanderSong: I didn't know much of anything about this going in, but it's music based so I'll play it. It's....cute! Has that very millennial kinda understated humor and colorful visuals, both of which are up my alley. And you can sing and dance and stuff! I have put a lot of time and energy into ear-training type things, so I picked up the singing mechanics very quickly....until they started being more visual-based than audio-based. I'm the weirdo who can easily play things back if I hear them but can't get my head around the little circle grid they put the notes on. And since eventually they started relying on that more...hm.

THE VERDICT: Hades still wins, but not by the stomp I thought it would be. WanderSong might've had a chance if it hadn't ended on expecting me to pull off this like DDR kinda mechanic, but if that's the direction the game goes, it loses a lot of its appeal for me, the niche person. Hades could suffer the same fate if I can't get my head around having to use C buttons on menus (why is "attack" a different binding than "do stuff" is different than "confirm") but it still gets past the first hurdle.

#8 Chicory: A Colorful Tale: It's....cute! I kinda wish I had more color options, but suspect I will get em. I very quickly reached the point of just putting a ton of paint everywhere instead of being all detailed and creative. >_> I appreciate the accessibility options, as somebody who can't right click and hold. That has made games unplayable for me in the past! Also content warnings although this seems like a game that shouldn't need em? But I got to the first boss(?) and it was surprisingly creepy. Hmmmm.

#9 CrossCode: Another one for the "oh hey maybe I can use a controller to finally play this!" file....except this time I couldn't figure out controller key bindings at all and reverted to trackpad and keyboard. Some of these inputs I am not sure how I'd do even with a proper gaming setup and only two hands! Looks real dang up my alley but uh I don't think a trackpad is gonna cut it. One for the Watch An LP Instead pile I guess. :\

The Verdict: I would like to give this to CrossCode but I can't quite convince myself it's doable on any meaningful level. Someday perhaps I will have a table or desk or something. Some shining day.

Wildermyth: BEATED, at least the Enduring War campaign. After some pretty big setbacks over the last couple of sessions, we kinda breezed to the end here, only taking one major injury. I love this game and may very well come back to it, but it's time for something different. I'm gonna start one of my STEAM BATTELS instead of putting it in the next poll and having to wait an arbitrary amount of time! As a refresher, I have an impossible backlog so I make a tournament bracket out of a buncha stuff I wanna play, and whittle it down by playing a bit of each.

I lost a lot of my records, so we'll deviate slightly from procedure this time. Four categories:

First four games that catch my eye in the ginormous Ukraine bundle I bought: GNOG, CrossCode, Wandersong, 2064:ROM

First four (applicable) games on Steam's "Play Next" shelf: Monster Prom, Hades, Stellaris, West of Loathing

Oldest four (applicable) games on my list of recent acquisitions(that no longer goes very far back): Monster Crown, Fate/Extella, Untitled Goose Game, Hat in Time

Four at-large games of my choice: Chicory, Labyrinth of Touhou, moon, Digimon Story Cybersleuth

In bracket form:
1 Hades v 16 WanderSong
8 Chicory v 9 CrossCode
4 Monster Crown v 13 Hat in Time
5 Fate/Extella v 12 West of Loathing
2 Labyrinth of Touhou v 15 GNOG
7 moon v 10 Digimon Cybersleuth
3 Stellaris v 14 2064: ROM
6 Goose Game v 11 Monster Prom

that is a similar level of time commitment <_<

I know myself and I will have to fight the urge to immediately start three big projects to replace it >_>

Apollo Justice: We found the noodle stand at least? And Ema is no longer weirdly cranky. Also, lol Klavier? I was as ready for that as I could be, which was not very much.

Wifebolo found the last few episodes of Speed Racer a bit ago, and we finished that up today! Would like to point out that the show ended with him riding into the sunset with Sparky after a two-parter where Trixie barely appeared and Speed expressed a disinterest in rich girls. Just....just saying.

Emma: Are we supposed to be rooting for Emma and Knightley? Cuz I'm rooting for Harriet and....Knightley, at this point. Kinda over Emma's nonsense, lesbian undertones or no!

it's gonna be a full dev fed in the 1007-verse don't let me make the 1007-verse

Wifebolo and I caught up on Dragon Prince! Was quite good, especially once it kinda found its stride on the plot and the animation. Kinda like RWBY where the early animation is pretty choppy but if you can get past that, would recommend. Lots of good character development and theme exploration and flawed people. Animal buddies that I would personally take over Appa and Momo I think. Good stuff! You....can tell it was the Avatar guys lol, so if you like that you'll probably like this.

Randomizer is kinda hitting a slog, I have sent and been sent a whole lotta things, and most of the players have finished, but I'm still missing my dang Hookshot and Flute, which as far as I know is what I need for the only other two dungeons I actually need to clear. Looking to be the last two upgrades I get, though!

Chrono: Got to the End of Time! The Factory was pretty annoying towards the end.

B8 randomizer is going once again! I decided to try a (particularly easy) LttP this time; I think that might become a focus for me maybe possibly. I'm just trying to do a pedestal run and I'm finding lots of stuff but not much progress. I've got both rods and the book, but I'm running out of things I can do, especially considering that I kinda suck. Did get most of Eastern Palace, at least.

you shoulda gotten a PM a week or two ago and actually it should've already auto-changed by now >_>

Roahm plays Spyro 13-16: Magic Crafters beated, on to Beast Makers, which has a much less fun vibe to the levels but also interesting attempts at accents. Things are getting tricky, it seems! I do wonder how hard and long this game is if you're not pretty dang good at it already.

also, new username who dis :\ the space rule finally caught up with us

Kirby: Getting close to the end of the...third?...world. The amusement park. The main game is still pretty easy but the side challenges and treasure roads are getting tricky a bit. Crash (and Time Crash!) is pretty dang fun. Think Noble Ranger is still my fave though. He gets a fancy hat!

Also been messing with HoloCure. I already liked Vampire Survivors and Hololive, so hey. It has a few features I wish Vampire would have, but on the other hand I wish it ran as smoothly. I also will never get used to being able to strafe, probably.