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i totally forgot i played two of these games this year


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just 400+ hours that i had misplaced in time

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like arceus was obviously this year, because it's one of the two actually new 2022 games i've even played

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the other being chocobo gp

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everything else was a new release of a game that came out some time before 2022

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(though i haven't even technically gotten to tactics ogre or live a live yet, they're waiting on me to finish ni no kuni)

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it is very funny looking through my switch year in review and how often they use "intense burst"

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like january was an intense burst of replaying ffx, which i didn't finish

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february was an intense burst of fe3h

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may was an intense burst of pla, followed by dq builders 2

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even the crunchyroll app says "intense burst" because i binged a few anime

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june, an intense burst of relaying alttp

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the only ones that aren't intense bursts were indie games that were only a few hours long

sᴛʀᴀᴡʙᴇʀʀᴇᴅ🧋
Or maybe you're an intensely burstful guy and don't realize it.

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like the almost gone, when the past was around, i am dead, dreamo, and umurangi generation (haven't finished, just played the first two levels)

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i mean i think it means "you played a lot of this game in a small amount of time, or even in a larger amount of time"

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which i will not deny

sᴛʀᴀᴡʙᴇʀʀᴇᴅ🧋
Yeah, more seriously it probably means that, but it's just more amusing to me to consider you an intensely burstful guy.

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interesting that hob wasn't an intense burst, but i guess i mostly played that only when i was watching something on the computer

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so maybe i spaced out the play sessions more

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and that was only after i hit a roadblock in katamari damacy when playing it the same way

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more intense bursts, july was gaa2 and castlevania cotm

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august was ai the somnium files and murder by numbers

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september was paradise killer and twenty hours of aimlessly trying to find romancing saga 3's plot

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no intense bursts in october, but in november i did castlevania harmony of dissonance and started ni no kuni

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anyway about games here i haven't talked about before: when the past was around has great art and is mostly a hidden object puzzle, a fine way to spend a couple hours

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i am dead was cute, and is also basically a hidden object puzzle but in 3d this time

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dreamo is all about gear puzzles, has a demo

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umurangi generation is cool, the music is great, but i can't imagine finishing a level in ten minutes

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hob is a neat little action adventure thing

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i don't really have a lot of thoughts of the almost gone beyond that there's a definite disconnect from its visuals and the growing dread of its story, which might be intentional

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and murder by numbers has great music, and got me hooked with the idea of an ace attorney-esque vn with picross puzzles, and while i was into the picross the story itself was way too copaganda for my tastes

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also i never once figured out why they decided to set it in the late 90s, nothing about the story felt like it was really necessary to make it work

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and, if anything, made the copaganda even more inexplicable, because the whole time i'm thinking "this is la and rodney king was literally only a few years ago"

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ni no kuni i'll talk about more when i'm done, i'm right outside the final boss and then i'll have postgame quests to do

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i played saga scarlet graces for a bit but got a little tired of how linear it was (wouldn't even let me backtrack), and how very clearly it was ported from a handheld game. i'll come back to it later.

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romancing saga 3 might actually have been a better crash course in how saga games work, because they resist traditional jrpg genre standards that they almost feel a little alien

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as i mentioned above i spent twenty hours not interacting with the plot at all, but i still had plenty to do, since there are sidequests everywhere

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but the way some of them interact, you won't be able to start one if you've already done another, and might be able to start one but not collect any rewards for it if you've started another, because the npc you'd get the rewards from is too busy doing stuff for the other quest

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a neat thing about the remaster is how easy it is to just start over with a new game+ at any time, which is probably meant to mitigate those issues

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anyway the main reason i hadn't interacted with the plot is i wasn't able to even find it, but there are like two places on the entire world map i hadn't been to yet

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i'll come back to it at one point and go to one of them

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either way it sure feels like a game where having some kind of guide to consult might be a good idea, just because of how directionless it is, and how easy it is to feel like you've run out of places to check out

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following a guide to the letter wouldn't be any fun, just have something you can check when you feel stuck

okupurra
arceus


okupurra
i could not get past noble arcanine so i gave up

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noble arcanine gave me some trouble, but the ability to restart the fight again with no consequences helped

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shit, they even make checkpoints during the boss battles so as long as you can knock out a quarter of the boss's health, you can keep that progress

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but arcanine was definitely annoying with how you've got a smaller arena that's tricky to navigate while he's throwing out all these spread attacks

okupurra
once he's down to 1/4 health i just could not get him to budge further. murdered me each time.

okupurra
yeah


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arceus is definitely like, the first pokemon game since gen1 that i ever struggled with difficulty wise

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i think once he's past 1/4 his attack pattern changes and you have to wait for an opportunity to hit him instead of just pelting him whenever you see an opening

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and that's how all the boss after will be too

okupurra
yep i tried after months to beat his floofy butt and still couldn't. maybe i'll get my cousin to play this part for me lmao.

okupurra
i just wanna have fun with pokemon gamefreak!!!


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all that said,


okupurra


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it's not a fair contest since i only played two new 2022 games

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but i did really like arceus

okupurra
i really liked it too! but after a while the whole "these pokemon on steroids will kill you" got old for me.

okupurra
i'm here to be friends with pokemon
(((


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i definitely avoided most alphas for a while until i was strong enough that everyone else in the area wasn't a threat

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but bosses didn't feel like they were even part of the same ecosystem, power-wise

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like the whole battle system they were part of was isolated from the rest of the game

okupurra
oh yeah, the current level of my team is 50 and all other pokemon are 35. still not enough somehow?

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especially since you more often face bosses as the trainer instead of via your pokemon

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the best method i had for handling a boss i was having trouble with was looking up a video of someone else doing it, to see if i was missing something

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i do think that helped with arcanine