With this website complete, and The Villain complete, and some good work done on Vanguard Outrider 2, I used my free time last weekend to record a bunch of gameplay for my YouTube channel.

Sea of Stars

I’m still going on Sea of Stars despite its anemic personality and unsatisfying level design. Not as unsatisfying as Bravely Default, let’s be really clear. There is jumping and mantling and switches and time manipulation puzzles. But there’s absolutely no tension at all when you’re doing any of this. You can’t fall off. You won’t encounter an enemy in a narrow passage. There are no random encounters. You’re just dully moving forward toward success through amazingly beautiful environments with outstanding sprite art.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

While I’ve played Jedi: Fallen Order, I never gelled with the combat system. I had no idea what it wanted from me. But it was fun and gorgeous, so I’m playing the sequel. It remains fun and gorgeous. Maybe this time I’ll figure out how to fight monsters properly. The performance issues on PC are mostly gone. There’s some stuttering, but it’s not impactful.

Octopath Traveler II

The first Octopath Traveler brought my favorite video game character in years: Ophelia the Most Humble, who never saw anything that was beneath her because she was always at the bottom. But the go-nowhere story and repetitive combat bored me. Plus the more melancholy character stories were tiresome. Apparently everything is better in the sequel. Let’s see how much better!

Tales of Arise

Anime games are mostly new to me. I played a little Persona 4 back in the day, but when the schoolgirls started squee’ing over some party member, I was out. Final Fantasy 8 had a similar problem. Oh, and Bravely Default. Now I get to experience the Tales Of series via Arise, which is more anime than all of them. As some who loves to snark on dialog I am delighted to find this game is overflowing with it, with long anime pauses to let me snicker at its absurd writing. I’m excited to continue this one and use the power of friendship to kill God.