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So, I have finished Rune Factory 3 Special, and it was fine, in of itself, but I did have some issues. In itself, the game is fine, and can be quite fun too. The core gameplay loop of farming, combat, crafting all sorts of items, and interacting with the other characters is pretty solid. Though the combat is a mindless button-masher, and since our character controls like a tank, it doesn’t feel good at all. The rest of the systems aren’t all that deep either, and the characters, although charming, are a bit one-note too. This, more or less, was my opinion of Rune Factory 4, as well, and RF3S, down to every system, is pretty much the same game. Unremarkable in their systems by themselves, but together, they make a satisfying whole. Though RF4 was still a fair bit more enjoyable. All in all, Rune Factory 3 Special is a decent package, even if nothing more.

That. Being. Said. This special edition is a remaster of the original, and as far as I can tell, a pretty substantial one at that. Because my biggest issue comes down to 3 simple letters: QOL. Quality of life improvements are what developers apply to the rougher edges of their games, to make things more user-friendly, to make the gameplay a smoother, more seamless experience. The devs of Rune Factory 3 remaster either never heard about QOL, or they didn’t give a single, flying f@%*! Yes, I am mad, and yes, I’m going to rant now. I don’t know if the devs were simply lazy or if it was that difficult working with a game that was originally for the Nintendo DS, but honestly, I don’t care. I expect more from a remaster (on PC) that came out in 2023, four whole years after the release of Rune Factory 4. I would think that in that time, they figured out how to, I don’t know, allow the player to exit to the main menu, instead of out of the whole game. As it stands, the only way for you to reload a save file is to quit the game entirely and then reboot it. This was a problem in Rune Factory 4 too, and annoying as hell there, but that was my first RF game, I didn’t know any better, so I gave it a pass. I’m not going to give a pass for that the second time. Not considering the circumstances and the elapsed time. And this is just the icing on the cake, I came upon such deficits every hour at the beginning of the game. Even the one I mentioned is actually a basic ass function in any other game; it would only have been a QOL improvement over the previous Rune Factory release (I'm not counting RF5 now). I could list a number of things that weren’t improved in the slightest. Hell, it’s even worse, Rune Factory 4 Special actually has better QOL than this remaster, which came 4 whole years later. Frankly, I don’t think I’m unreasonable to expect more from a remaster, in this day and age. I wouldn’t even have wanted something like them revamping the clunky inventory management, I would have been fine with even basic improvements, such as being able to quit to the main menu…

But yeah, once I got over my initial anger, Rune Factory 3 Special is still a largely fine game, if severely lacking in quality of life improvements.

I beat 'Sword of the Sea' earlier today. Here is my humble review.

TL;DR If you liked Journey and ABZÛ, you will love this new game, without a doubt.

The music by Austin Wintory is as beautiful as you can expect. The visuals and what we can expect from these developers. I played in 1440p and it looked fabulous. The game, as is, offers the opportunity to take hundreds if great screen captures. There is also a photo mode which might be responsible for you to fill up your hard drive with pictures.

The gameplay loop and mechanics are evolutions of what you might find in Journey and ABZÛ. There are more things to do, more collectibles and more reasons to explore each area to find something. The controls are great and each area offers something different enough that it's not repetitive.

There are some story events that will make your control your characters in different ways and you can get new powerups that will allow you to reach new areas.

I think the game is more focused and has more depth than the previous games made by that team and once you beat the game you can access each chapter individually to get the collectibles you may have missed along the way.

I won't spoil anything here. Get it. Totally worth the price. I beat it in roughly 4h20 and I consider that's a fair time if you explore and try to find stuff.

I give it a 9/10. The whole experience was enjoyable and I think it's their best work so far. I can't wait for their next game.

I just beat Inscryption tonight. That game is wild. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys puzzle games, card games, indie games, horror/psych thriller games, or any combination of those things. Even if you don't like one or two of those things, trust me when I say that the game is good enough that you won't notice the stuff you aren't ecstatic about.

So, I have finished Yumina the Ethereal, and it was a decent time for the most part. It's a visual novel/JRPG hybrid. The story itself was fine, and so were the characters, although somewhat regretably, the pace only picks up in the second half. That second half was fairly engaging, though. My real problem was with the gameplay. It's not that different from the typical turn-based systems such games use, but the game's unique twist on it felt more like a hassle and nothing but a restriction. Also, the gameplay and narrative were not integrated in the slightest. Most battles were relegated to a separate dungeon-crawling mini-game, which was just boring, honestly. When, during the second major boss fight, I could easily beat the boss, but still lost the fight due to not fulfilling some arbitrary secondary objective, thanks to the gameplay's unique quirks, I was fed up and gave up on the gameplay completely. I played the rest of the game with cheats on, since the narrative was still fun. It's a fairly long game regardless.

All in all, I could not get behind the gameplay at all, but the story and characters were still fun.

Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest - Completed. Took me a while to get through this due to a lack of time, it's not even that long. I really enjoyed it however. It's not remarkably different from the original game, but the storylines and characters, especially the voice acting and writing are just so good. It still surprises me how much quality is in these games and how likely they are to be overlooked. The gameplay is still fun, though I still contend that the skill trees are a bit limited and the items are a bit weird but I was still able to build out a full roster of characters I had fun playing with. The characters though are just amazing, so well enough to choke me up with emotion from time to time. Obviously these things are really a "your mileage may vary" kinda deal, you might hate the gameplay or not gel with the characters or storylines but I really do think these games are worth your attention, it's one of those properties you've probably had in your peripheral memory and just considered as generic high fantasy, and the earlier games maybe but Spellforce 3 and this expansion have really elevated the bar, the developer craftwork here might not be groundbreaking but it's certainly notable. I honestly hope everyone involved is proud of their efforts because I am for them.

I wasn't sure what thread to put this in so I'll chuck it in here. And feel free to disagree, I'm just here to post my thoughts on an interesting game I finished.

I just finished Hollow Knight for the first time, I didn't find it super enjoyable personally. The early game progression is really weak. The game significantly picks up after getting the Dream Nail, there is actually mildly interesting progression to the game past that. The whole long end sequence with getting all the dreamers was really fun. That doesn't change the fact that the progression pre-dreamnail is just incredibly weak and almost aimless. The boss fights were all really good, I loved the combat. It was just about the perfect challenge. But the early game progression and the lackluster and somewhat unrewarding exploration dragged down the experience for me. I did enjoy it more over time, but we're talking about me having a 5/10 experience in the early-mid game, to a 9/10 experience in the late game. So I just averaged it out to a final score of 7/10. I don't think it's a bad game at all, I just don't share the overwhelming love for it.

If I could spoiler tag an image I would post my ending/stats screen, I'll just write my completion stats here. I got 60% completion in ~15 hours, and I got the Hollow Knight ending.

One of the games I beat for game pass, I also beat another one, but I still have to review that one since I've been quite busy as of late.

September 5th - Little Kitty, Big City - 10h 7m - 8/10 - Main+ - Started August 22nd - 14 Days Taken - Beat the game, did all the quests, got 54/56 hats and got 82% of achievements.

Full Review

TLDR version:
Pros:
Leans more into it being a cat game than Stray. Customization adds much needed emotional attachment.

Neutral:
Music and humor are decent but nothing outstanding.

Cons:
Noticeably buggy, but not enough to ruin the experience.

The second game I beat for game pass. Took a whole week for me to have enough time to write the review, but I finally got it out.

September 6th - Unpacking - 4h 11m - 4/10 - Main - Finished same day as started - Beat all levels and got 56% of achievements.

Full Review

TLDR Review:
Pros:
Very grounded, even has pixel art of real brands.

Neutral:
Bit too expensive for it's length.

Cons:
Puzzle and cozy games design ideologies don't mesh together very well. Leaning into one aspect or the other would've been better.

Recently finished the first Dragon Quest game on Switch and I had a really good time with it. I didn't think I was going to like it all that much due to it being based on a nearly 40+ year old game at this point and I'm not fond of playing NES games in general. But the Switch Version had a lot of things I enjoyed. It was surprisingly easy to get into and reading some of the tutorials in game do help you get through parts much smoother. I think the best part about the game is how it didn't feel that archaic and the overall gameplay loop just kept me coming back to improve my character. Grinding was much more fun than I expected in this one and even though it's 1v1 it didn't hurt the pace of the game, which mainly consists of that grind to the Dragon Lord. Dying never was frustrating and I knew I had to go back and improve my character more and more which felt so rewarding when you finally defeat something like a Green Dragon for the first time.

I did use a guide halfway through the game to make things a little bit easier and I don't know if I really would have needed it since I knew right away the Magic Keys play a big role in progressing throughout so unlocking doors became easier once I found a shop. My only complaints really, is that the "Ye Olde English" dialogue is awful and everyone in the game sounds like a annoying patronizing mocking pretentious douche whenever anyone talked like "Thou list be'eth no'wn goeth to'eth saveth thy kingdom!" which seriously, how the hell am I supposed to take that seriously ESPECIALLY having read My Immortal dozens of times for laughs? (seriously, the only thing I find where this works is in Shakespeare). Otherwise, Stellar Game. I was thrilled with the overall gameplay loop and I had a marvelous time.

I gave it an 8.5/10. Can't wait to play other Dragon Quest games after this.

I also finished POSTAL: Brain Damaged and I'm certainly glad I got this for 5 dollars because it's a tough pill for me to pay CDN $25.99 for a game with a demo that I absolutely hated. The game certainly didn't give me a good first impression right from the start but once I got to Act II it was mainly uphill from here. It's a very heavy tech shooter with tons of mechanics and management in terms of weapons, alt fires, items, movement and yes, in classic POSTAL fashion even pissing has it's uses. It's nothing spectacular but I felt satisfied with it in the end especially since you're jumping all over the place like Quake and fighting hordes of enemies. The issues: Game just doesn't wanna work sometimes. I crashed three times (well, crashed once and froze twice) and the game unlike POSTAL 2 wouldn't teleport me out of softlock zones which there are shockingly many, plus the cast of enemies are 99% stereotypes and the one liners aside from a few aren't that good. I still enjoyed it and was happy to see that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It definitely goes up when Act II comes along.

I gave it a 7.5/10.

Fallout New Vegas
Completion September 4th, 2025
Main+Extras (Includes DLC) 89h 1m 35s
Notes NCR Ending
Review
+Brilliantly designed open world which allows you top go anywhere but soft locks you to go the specific path
+Fantastic mix of factions and characters with morally grey ideologies
+Great skills and weapons abound
-Fallout New Vegas is constantly crashing
-The inventory is a mess and hard to navigate
-There is no quick select for the health packs or weapons
Review:
Fallout New Vegas is an expansive and well built shooter RPG. It’s world is built extremely well with landmarks scattered throughout the world that filter people to those locations but also does it with multiple different ways with multiple quests reaching the more interesting locations (such as the 4 vaults in the game). Ultimately New vegas falls back on it’s excellent writing with a mixture of interesting factions each with there pros and cons and locations such as the different vaults and the strip itself. It has a lot to go for it and builds upon itself to make you want to continue the game. The game is not perfect though as I constantly got crashes when playing the game which hinder progress and the inventory was a completer mess with no real way of filtering items expected for the very minimum filters they currently have in game and there is no quick access to health items or weapons. Ultimately New Vegas is a flaw3ed shooter wrapped in a package of an excellent world and story that compels you to move forward
9/10

Fallout: New Vegas - Dead Money DLC
Completion July 21st, 2025
Main+Extras 7h
Review
An interesting take on a bank heist with some really well written characters. This is one of the more compelling DLCs for New Vegas with the whole premise and the characters within it. The main issue is that the DLC is built for stealth and so playing outside of a stealth build is a pain in the arse especially being unkillable enemies unless you cut off a limb. It makes the DLC tedious to play as a normal shooter. Still the characters are very compelling and worth going through to the end
7/10

Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts DLC
Completion July 25th, 2025
Main+Extras 3h
Review
The DLC is built around the burnt man a mysterious character from caesar’s legion and who make for a compelling character however the DLC is half baked and needed more time to really flesh out the burnt mans character and the challenges he and the his new tribe are facing
6/10

Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues
Completion August 25th, 2025
Main+Extras 8h 32m 7s
Review
An annoying and repetitive DLC which relies far too much on poor humour and annoying fetch quests to make it of any interests. It does however have some of the best and most interesting weapons in the game
5/10

Fallout: New Vegas - Lonesome Road
Completion September 2nd, 2025
Main+Extras 5h 54m 38s
Review
Lonesome road is one of the loneliest parts of the fallout new vegas games and it is built that way with only 2 npcs to talk to (EDE and Ulysses) but it creates a full compelling if linear little story within the world of fallout new vegas with Ulysses acting as one of the most compelling antagonists in the game and how his story overlaps with the couriers backstory. This is the strongest DLCs for New vegas and very much worth a playthrough
8/10

Bit.Trip Core
Completion September 13th, 2025
Main Story 2h 32s
Notes All 3 levels easy
Review
+Interesting take on the bit trip games
+Simple controls and easy to get into
+Some catchy songs
-Only 3 levels
-Levels are long without any checkpoints
-Relies too much on trial and error
Review:
Bit trip core has you playing as a cross in the centre where you must hit bits from the 4 directions in the centre of the stage. Its an interesting take on the bit trip series and one of the strong ones. It however has the same issues as the other bit trip series with being rather short and relining on long levels with no checkpoints and trial and error game play where rules established are broken on a whim.
7/10

Bit. Trip Flux
Completion September 15th, 2025
Main Story 1h 40m 20s
Review
+Has checkpoints unlike other Bit trip games.
+Continuation of the Bit.Trip beat game
-Only 3 levels
-Reliant of gyroscope controls which are fiddly (standard control s are not fast enough)
Review:
Bit Trip Flux is basically more Bit.Trip Beat where you play a rhythm version of pong and hit bits back against the rhythm. Not bad and this game at least has checkpoints compared to other Bit.Trip games however the gyroscope controls are fiddly and the main issue of the game as standard controls are not fast enough to reach each side of the screen.
6/10

Bit. Trip Void
Completion September 17th, 2025
Main+Extras 55m 29s
Review
+different take on the bit.trip series
+Checkpoints in the game
-Lacking the feel of the other bit.trip series
-Does not have the intensity that the other bit.trip games have and comes off as uninteresting
Review:
Bit.Trip void changes a bit too much in the feeling of the Bit.Trip series. While it is possible to get through very quickly it is not as fun as the others. You play an orb which grows with each black bit eaten and goes smaller each white bit hit. It is fairly simple but missing the speed of the other games and just feel tepid in the end.
5/10

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
Completion September 24th, 2025
Main+Extras (includes DLC) 27h 7m 32s
Notes Mostly Co-Op. DLC played solo
Co-Op 19h 56m 37s
Review
Borderlands the Pre Sequel is a filler game meant to fill in between 2 and 3. It offers little substance and is far to reliant on backtracking for it’s sub quests. It still makes use of the borderlands formula and continues to have fun with the formula but it cannot get around the fact that it is not fully irrelevant to the whole borderlands series and can easily be skipped
6/10

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! - Claptastic Voyage
Completion September 27th, 2025
Main+Extras 7h 10m 55s
Review
Claptastic Voyage is a simple continuation of the pre-sequel it offers nothing new and has the same issues as the base game with too much backtracking and an irrelevant story for the whole of the borderlands series. A filler DLC for a filler gameplay
6/10

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Completion September 27th, 2025
Completionist 59h 57m 52s
Notes All Achievements but Aiding the enemy did not trigger
Review
+Excellent variety of characters with there own unique set of moves and style of attacks to be used in the gameplay
+A vibrant and unique world with lots of secrets to find
+A great and stylistic RPG which keeps you on your toes with it’s parry and doge system
-Platforming in the game while limited is not suited for this game
-Act 3 has some balancing issues
-A bug in the Aiding the enemy preventing me from getting all achievements
Review
Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is a beautifully created RPG which builds onto the standard turn based RPG to make for a compelling built system. It does this by including a parry and dodge system with the dodge system acting as an easier move but does not offer a counter attack that the parry does. There are 6 characters overall in the game and each has there own unique set of moves and systems that gel well with each other to make for a series of interesting of combinations. This is done within an interesting and unique world with some different takes on the standard biomes. The only real issue is the balancing issues in the third act and platforming in the game being award but not often. This is a game that I fully recommend for anyone to try.
10/10

I have finished "Super spy hunter" this weekend, it is a NES game, a shooter.

I used to rent it when I was a kid and I do not know if I managed to finish it or not.

It is a hard game, I completed it without save states, "mastered" on RetroAchievements.

Also I have seen Gran turismo 7 credits, but there are a lot of thing to do, so, I am continue playing

Regards!

Finished two short Ace Attorney crossover fangames. This is the first one, which is a crossover between Higurashi and Ace Attorney. I'll write the review for the second one tomorrow.

October 2nd - Ace Higurashi Attorney - The Curry Turnabout - 34m - 5/10 - 100% - Started same day as finished - Beat the game and saw the staff room.

Full Review

TLDR Review:

Pros:
Funny dark humor and surprisingly good art that recreates the Ryukishi style in Ace Attorney poses.

Neutral:
Good music, although you can't adjust the music volume and it's very loud.

Cons:
Basic VN gameplay that doesn't adapt the Ace Attorney gameplay mechanics. Leads to leaps of logic and not getting that eureka moment when you figure something out.

I’m finally done with Silent Hill f! I managed to unlock all the achievements, and it took me three playthroughs to get all the endings. My first playthrough was probably the longest since I was still adjusting to the combat and soaking in the atmosphere. The second and third runs were much faster. The combat on Lost in the Fog difficulty might be the hardest I’ve ever experienced. Overall, the game is really good and unique, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time completing it.

(Yeah, I already uninstalled it to make way for other games lol)

Here's the second Ace Attorney fangame I finished. This one is a crossover between Ace Attorney and Danganronpa.

October 3rd - Ace Attorney: Ultimate Justice - 1h 40m - 6/10 - 100% - Started same day as finished - Beat all currently available cases, which is currently 1.

Full Review

TLDR Review:
Pros:
High quality, neat references and epic remixed music for the final cross-examination.

Cons:
The fangame is unfinished and likely abandoned, so the plot threads it sets up are wasted.