Nintendo

Finished FFVII Intergrade! That was much shorter than I expected, but I did put in a vintage one day, 10-hour shift into it. I also played on classic mode which made me enjoy the game a lot more. I loved not feeling the frustration of getting caught in the triangle exclamation point attacks because the game was taking care of that blocking for me.

Started Persona 5 Royal after reading the first few volumes of the manga adaptation. The presentation is so stylish that I felt I had to post again this weekend.

Been working on Pokopia with my kiddo and we're chomping at the bit to progress the main storyline tonight!

Finished Astalon: Tears of the Earth!

Got the "Normal" ending and that's good enough. I liked a lot of things about this game, but the checkpoint system absolutely ruined my enjoyment of it.

Playing Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian!

I remember being confused when this game was announced because it shares the same name as Gust's gacha game and I thought it would be some kind of "offline styre mode" for that one - but it's in fact a brand new game, only taking place in the same world.

What it inherits from the gacha game is the concept of "wanderers", crossover characters from other games in the Atelier franchise. Your main party is the two new characters (Rias and Slade) plus four returning (Raze, Wilbell, Totori and Sophie), but you also get a ton of other cameos during quests.

The game is a return to old-school Atelier. Low-stakes, slice of life with turn-based combat and a ton of crafting to do. The battle system is very similar to the one in Sophie 2 with characters in the front and back rows constantly switching positions while chaining attacks, and I enjoy how this lets you use your whole party in most battles.

I'm really liking the crafting system. At first it looks very simple, almost reminiscent of the early PS3 games, but the need to "chain" ingredients based color to transfer traits and effects add some really cool puzzle-like elements.

Finally, there's a new "shop" system where you can sell items to get money and help evolve the city, but I think this one is half-baked. There's some customization you can do to the store but most of the time it's just "select some items to sell (usually using the auto-select feature)", press "Open Shop" and get a ton of money.

No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week.

Made more progress in Visions of Mana. I wish the game had more boss fights and fewer trial battles with time limits. I started lowering the difficulty for them because I just don't have the damage output to finish them in time on Hard. And I don't think your party members are very good at fighting, either. Bosses are fun because you actually have to dodge attacks. Normal battles just don't have any depth to them.

I'm lost in the metro network of Fallout 3. I remember not liking it when I first played the game, but the DC city area with its isolated sub-areas you can only access via sewers and metro lines is an absolute pain in the rear.

At least I have the Anchorage quest behind me, the Fallout DLC for people who wish they weren't playing Fallout. Crazy rewards though, I now have armor that makes me invisible when I'm crouched. I knew it existed, but I expected it to have some kind of limit or cooldown. But it's just busted and its base defense is on par with what I had before, too. I almost don't want to use it, but invisibility has always been my favorite power, so I find this very entertaining~

Finished Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade? The title is too much. Part one of the remake is done! Except I unlocked a hard mode I don’t want that is required to see certain parts of the story. I should have gone though it on easy; then I might have the interest in looking for more.

Started the Spring Season of my Microsoft Excel and Kahoot powered baseball game for my students. I printed box scores for the first four games and posted them on the lockers outside of my classroom. I am getting so much joy from the programming involved in transforming mostly random numbers into a baseball game with a story. One of these weeks, I’ll block out the names and post a box score.

Regarding Ticket to Ride Legacy: @slimerancher@lemmy.world asked about the difference between this and the original game, so I wanted to share with y’all what makes it so special. The idea of a legacy game is that choices made in the first (of twelve or so) game you play leads to different outcomes in future games. We are all railroaders looking to make money in the late 1800s but because of the time, in the first three games of the legacy, we are limited to routes from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Over time, you expand the map as the story develops.

Writing about it this much makes me itchy to play more. I don’t want to spoil any more of it, but for those of you just wondering, there’s nothing earth-shattering behind the spoiler tag. If you are already planning on playing, don’t read it!

I think I’ll start the FFVII Interlude with Yuffie tonight!