I gave FFXIII 3 shots, putting in over 40h in total. The farthest I got was about halfway through, two years ago. I hated the game so much, that I actually stopped playing games altogether for like three months. It was completely miserable. I’m a certified FFXIII hater.

That D4 Halloween event was such a disappointment for me. I did like two Nightmare Dungeons (didn’t even spawn the Butcher), collected the free items, and was done.

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.

You probably know this already, but if you don’t get slowed down that much on T3, definitely move up, but if you’re just getting killed too much or don’t kill stuff fast enough, stay on T2. I farmed T3 for a while, even though I had unlocked T4, because I would just get one-shot too much. After some more upgrades and a Mythic Unique, I was finally able to do T4 efficiently.

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).

I thought I was done with the latest Diablo 4 season last week, but then I put in a bunch more hours this weekend. While the season and the expansion is generally fun, it feels like the devs took two steps forward and one step back. Progression seems a lot more tedious, compared to before. In earlier seasons, you could basically unlock the highest difficulty really fast and progress pretty quickly to the endgame content. Now, with everything a lot harder and a bunch more difficulty options, you take twice or three times as long, to get to the same point as before. If I didn’t play the Spiritborn, who is completely busted this season, it might’ve taken even longer. I still gotta try the raid, which you can only do coop, although I rarely play with someone else.

Then I started HROT, but have only finished the first level, so I can’t talk about it too much. It seems like it’s basically just Quake with a different skin, I guess? I love the look, and it plays pretty smoothly, so I look forward to playing more of it.

More Diablo 4, after finally getting over my cold. Playing through the campaign was super boring (being sick and miserable didn’t help). All that time is also basically wasted, and you just want it to be over as fast as possible, to actually start progressing your character. Future seasons might be better, since you can skip the campaign, but a bunch of stuff only unlocks after you hit max level anyway, so who knows. The expansion increased the difficulty of the game, added some more difficulty options and did a stat squish, but I don’t think I’m a big fan. Until yesterday, it felt like I was just treading water, not making much progress. Then I managed to unlock Torment 3 difficulty, change my build a bit and get good enough gear, started blasting through enemies, and had more fun. So, while I’m not bored out of my skull anymore, I think I’ll just finish the season journey and battle pass, and then take another break from the game.

Good to know. If I get more into Doom an non-official stuff, I might look at those, but for now the batch file will do.

True, how easy it is to get into the games with this port, along with the mod browser, definitely outweighs the few minor issues.

I’ve actually downloaded Woof myself for my Final Doom playthrough. It takes a few minutes to read up on how to create a batch file to make launching the game more user friendly, but once you’re in, it’s has everything you’d want.

I really enjoyed the first game years ago, but never really got into the sequel the few times I tried, although I never disliked it.

I finished Doom II and some levels were an absolute pain. I gotta say though, this re-release (Doom + Doom II) is a bit disappointing. There are a bunch of glitches, although pretty minor, that are just annoying. The most frustrating one for me was, when you have the Pistol Start option activated (to automatically start all levels with just the Pistol), the Backpack is bugged and doesn’t give double ammo capacity. Once you die and restart the level it’s fixed, until the next level. I don’t know if it ever made the difference with me dying or not, but it just sucks.

Today I started Final Doom, specifically TNT:Evilution, which I’ve never played before. Just like before I’m trying UV, Pistol Start, no mid-level saves, but depending on how it goes I might start using saves. I’ll probably try a different source port though, since this KEX engine port isn’t the best.

I also played through Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores DLC, although only the main quests and almost nothing else. It was kinda meh. The story was fine, but the final boss fight was complete garbage. The romance part also felt really rushed, especially since I went through everything over just two days/seven hours in total.

Then, I’m also kinda in-between games right now, since I’m waiting for the Diablo 4 expansion release in a bit over a week. There are a bunch of games I want to play, but probably won’t finish in time, so they have to wait. I tried Ace Combat 7, played through the first mission, but it didn’t really grab me (KB+M is definitely more playable than the Steam forums made it seem). I’ll probably play through one of the dozens of metroidvanias I bought, but never played.

We need that Cosby Suite back!

I finished Doom in the most recent re-release (Doom + Doom II), Ultra-Violence, Pistol Start and no save scumming. The base game isn’t too difficult, but still one level per episode gave me some trouble. The fourth episode is a massive step-up in difficulty though. E4M6 took me a lot of tries, but it got a lot easier, once I found some secrets with extra weapons.

After Doom, I continued with Doom II, still on UV, Pistol Start, no saves, and the first few levels are no issue, but it got tough real quick. Basically, just like E4 in the first game, it’s often about finding the best path to more weapons and ammo. The levels are also more open, so you usually have a few different paths to choose from, so figuring stuff out takes a bit. Depending on how it goes, I might start looking at the wiki to check out secrets and pickups and kinda plan a route that way.

I also finished Lies of P. It’s a good game and I had fun, but the there are definitely some weird decisions by the devs, although they were pretty minor. Weapon durability felt pretty pointless, I think only for two or three boss fights did I have to sharpen during the fight. Same with the jump, which is only needed a few times. However, since it’s like Dark Souls, so you need to sprint to be able to jump, any more would have sucked anyway. Might as well put in a dedicated button like Elden Ring and make it better, or just remove it. The weapon system was pretty neat, even though I basically just used three different heads and handles. I loved the perfect block mechanic, especially if it also destroyed the enemy weapon. Too bad it doesn’t work on the monster enemies, I guess, since they don’t really carry a weapon. The story got pretty lame in the end, but it’s whatever. I disliked two boss fights, the first Black Brotherhood fight since it was a gank fight, and the penultimate boss, because the hitboxes were just really weird, and I was constantly getting shoved around, so even on a perfect block I was a mile away from the boss.

Finally, I started Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores DLC. I played the base game earlier this year, when it released on Steam, but I’m not really feeling the huge 3D open world right now. I’ll still finish the story, since it’s pretty short, but will probably only do the critical path and little to no exploring.

Just when the new season in World of Warcraft starts, I stop playing. I had a lot of fun, but also played a lot these last couple of months. WoW is also not a game I just play on the side. If I play it, I basically play nothing else. No idea when I’ll be back, probably if my best friend starts again, but who knows if that happens.

I wanted to check out the latest re-release of Doom with Doom + Doom II, and look at the new episode, but decided to try and play through all the levels of the first two games on Ultra-Violence, Pistol Start, and no save scumming. I’m halfway through episode three of Doom, and it’s not been too difficult so far. Three levels took me a few tries, the rest wasn’t too bad. The main thing is a lack of ammo, especially at the start of a level, so you either got to get comfortable punching things or cause infighting. I usually choose the former, so the Berserk power-up is always a welcome sight.

Then I started Lies of P. I killed three major bosses so far and it’s alright. I play on KB+M, and as always controls are just so-so. It’s not like you have 60-100 keys available, so better put two or three abilities on the same button or force players to cycle through item shortcuts.

Maybe a bad time to pick up the game again, since 1.0 is releasing next month, along with the story/campaign, so you might just get to do it all over again!

I played Tunic last December and loved it, and while I found a lot of stuff, I definitely needed some help to get the good ending. I was definitely glad to have done so though.

Another week until the World of Warcraft Expansion releases, and I used the event to level all of my characters to 70. Even my very first character, who hadn’t seen the light of day in over 15 years, is now properly equipped to take on whatever may come. Too bad it’s a priest, which I really don’t like to play, so back into the dungeon he goes. The Remix mode also ends tomorrow, so all of those characters will migrate over to retail, which means I’ll look over those and do some final house cleaning.

Then I’m pretty much done with the Diablo 4 season, but not because it’s boring or anything, but I kinda finished everything I wanted to do and more. I was playing a Chain Lightning Sorcerer, but found the final item to change my build to Lightning Spear, which is just completely overpowered this season. I kinda breezed through everything, killed all the giga versions of the bosses, cleared Pit level 100, the new Infernal Hordes mode on Tier 8, and upgraded all my stuff. Today I killed some more of the Uber bosses and even got two Uber Legendaries (which I salvaged to crafter another one). I might try and push my Pit level a bit higher, and try to kill Echo of Lilith, the final Uber boss, which got reworked somewhat last season or something, so it’s not just you getting one-shot by terrible hit boxes all the time. (Edit: just killed her, wasn’t too bad, but you need to learn the fight a bit, so in the beginning it just feels you randomly die.)

Also, this last year or so I’ve been “playing” Melvor Idle, which is Runescape, but as an idle game. The game recently launched it’s third DLC, but I’ve been holding off on playing it, since I wanted to 100% everything else first. This week I finally got done with the base game and the first DLC and am almost finished with the second DLC, although it might take another one or two weeks just grinding stuff, so I can craft the missing items. I’ve played a bunch of idle or incremental games over the years, but this is definitely my favorite. It’s not a clicker, there is no constant rebirth or whatever, you just choose a skill and you slowly train it. The best part is, you can actually close the game and fully progress offline. The game also has an in-game mod browser with tons of mods, kinda like the Steam Workshop, which is fantastic.

More of the World of Warcraft Pre-Expansion Event. Like last week, I leveled a bunch of characters to max, just because it’s easy, even if they’ll never see the light of day again (until the next event like this).

Then, the new Diablo 4 season started, and in less than a week I’ve basically progressed as far as the whole of last season. I went with a Sorcerer this time, currently running a Chain Lightning build, and it’s a lot more fun than the Minion Necromancer last time. However, now I’m at the point where it’s not just easy upgrades all the time, but grinding for those drops to feel a real difference, so the honeymoon phase might end soon. The new season mechanic seems pretty neat, although I haven’t done a whole lot of it yet. It’s a pretty simple wave based mode in a small room, where you just get to slaughter tons of demons and a boss fight afterward. This mode has different tiers or difficulties, most of which I haven’t tried yet, so I don’t know how much things change, if at all, but considering I’ll probably only play another two weeks at most (until the Warcraft expansion release) I don’t see it getting old.

The World of Warcraft Expansion Pre-Patch Event went live this week, and it was complete garbage. The event got changed two days later, which fixed basically everything wrong with it, and now it’s pretty good. I managed to level almost all my level 60 characters to max through the event, since it barely takes an hour each. Basically none will ever see any serious playtime and will just collect dust again.

Then I just finished the Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Lost Valley DLC and enjoyed it much more than the base game. The gameplay is still D&D, no changes there, but the setting is much smaller this time. You’re not on some world-saving quest or killing a god, but a very confined area, with about a dozen locations you can visit (plus sub areas like caves or dungeons). Your party gets trapped in a valley and has to find a way out. There are people living in the valley, complete with a city and everything, but there’s kind of a civil war going on, so you gotta pick a side and which faction to support. Due to my choices, the ending was kind of unspectacular, but still fine. Since there are multiple factions, who are at war, and you can’t please everyone, there’s stuff you can’t do in a single playthrough (mainly quests and dialogue, not locations I think). Since the DLC is on the shorter side, you’re encouraged to play through it multiple times, but I most likely won’t do that. I do however look forward to the second DLC campaign, Palace of Ice, which I’ll probably won’t play for a few months.

Next week, Diablo 4 Season 5 will start, which I look forward to. This time I’ll play a Sorcerer. Let’s hope it’s not another bust, like the Minion Necromancer last time.

One of my favorite games, although the second game tops it in my opinion. Sadly, I could never get my friends into the game, since I’d have loved to play it coop.