It’s a quick introduction this week. I have another 3 weeks of go! go! go! before the Christmas shutdown and the annual server work. Which also means about three weeks before I take an end-of-year break!
I will talk more about that over the next couple of weeks. For now, let’s jump straight into what I played last week!
It’s another week where I am pretty sure I played about 30 rounds of Cartographers without realising it. At this point, assume the next time I talk about Cartographers it’s to say I didn’t play it that week!
What can I say? I enjoy the puzzle that Cartographers provides. My physical copy of Cartographers Heroes was fun for a few solo rounds, but I have both base games digitally. The setup is instant, and I can keep playing or stop mid-game with ease.
The catch is, I have talked about Cartographers as much as I really can. I enjoy playing it, and it’s all the same game. I have started playing with a couple of the different starter sheets included in the game. So I am maybe a month away from playing out the digital version as much as I can?
Even if I do reach this end of the digital version, I have the physical Cartographers Heroes to fall back on. This includes skill cards (not included in the physical game) and 3 more maps to explore.
I should be good for Cartogprahers goodness for some time to come!
It was another pretty light-board game week this week. I did notice that Roll Player had an update, but there isn’t anything too exciting added this round.
There are a couple of nice quality of life improvements like AI skill level saved between games. Pass and Play has now been renamed to Local Game. My favourite one is adding a note to the bottom of class cards describing what certain attribute actions are.
Other than that, there were a couple of fringe bug fixes that I never encountered. It’s always nice to see game-breaking bugs squashed.
So a couple more rounds of Roll Player is always a nice thing. It had been a while, and Cartographers on my phone had ended up taking over my quick digital board game fix. Maybe when Roll Player leaves Early Access, a phone version could be on the cards?
I did it. I Platinuned Bloodborne. And the feeling is so satisfying. As I talked about last week, I did use a guide to take me on a path through The Old Hunters DLC. Doing this while exploring Chalice Dungeons did save a lot of time. Maybe a little too much time though?
Yes, it sounds weird to say that I saved too much time. But Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons are a grind. The dungeons have random elements. Not quite roguelike, but not super predictable either. Even so, they are so ‘samey’ it takes more endurance than I anticipated.
So I managed to defeat the last DLC boss well before I started the final Chalice Dungeon. Oops!
I did get a little worried after defeating the Orphan of Kos and then checking my trophies. The trophy for collecting all the DLC weapons hadn’t popped. This is part of the reason I was using a guide in the first place! What did I miss? Did Bloodborne distract me with enemies when I should have picked up items?
Nope. It was all on me. Because I was looking for a guide without spoilers that took you down a path, I didn’t buy one item. That was it. All I had to do was buy the one weapon missing, and bang – The Old Hunters 100% complete!
So now it was time to tackle the Chalice Dungeons again, and Yharnam the Pthumerian Queen.
What followed was a couple of days of boss fights, exploration and item collection. It took some time, but I finally faced off against Yahrnam herself. I had watched PlayStation Access take Rob through this fight, so I had some idea of what abilities she had. In true Bloodborne fashion though, I overestimated how prepared I was.
I thought I would jump into the fight and wear her down a reasonable amount while I learned her animations and timing. I got in a few good hits, then got absolutely destroyed. Oops. So I rolled up my sleeves and repositioned myself on the couch, and settled in for a battle! So imagine my surprise when I took her down on the next try!
This meant all I had to do was finish the Moon Presence fight. The final boss of Bloodborne has been patiently waiting for me to return for a rematch. So off I ran, and long story short I managed to take the Moon Presence down.
Finishing Bloodborne led to a strange emotional mix. The excitement of facing the hardest bosses in the game had the adrenaline pumping. Defeating them though had me drained. It was done. Bloodborne was defeated. So what was the first thing I did? New game plus of course! I did pretty well here, not dying until Father Gascoine after Enzo… Helped me with the battle.
So for now, my FromSoftware adventure is done for 2022. Elden Ring and Bloodborne Platinums in one year – quite the journey! Now, I can join the hordes of others hoping for a Bloodborne 2 someday.
But I will take on Jedi Fallen Order before Sekiro I think. Another game I need to finish at some point, but not this year!
I have been looking forward to The Callisto Protocol since the announcement. Survival horror in space is always something I have been on the lookout for, and only Dead Space did it really well. Sorry Dino Crisis, there was an attempt with 3, but you only jumped the shark.
So Friday night I got everything sorted, fired up my PlayStation and settled in for a gaming session. The headphones were charged, everything was done, and I had a couple of hours run to play with no interruptions.
Well, I played for those two hours. And upon going to bed, all I could think of to describe Callisto Protocol to Rabbit is “It’s Dead Space done wrong”.
Let me be clear and confirm I am enjoying the time I have spent with The Callisto Protocol so far. There is a lot of potential for world-building. Graphiclly it looks amazing. Controls take some getting used to, but aren’t bad in my opinion.
What Callisto Protocol had done too that point is be on rails Dead Space. Reluctant protagonist? Check. A mysterious woman who knows more than she lets on? Check. Quasi-religious group with scientific reasons for killing mankind? Check.
Then there was the gameplay itself. I was enjoying running through the story, but that is all you do – run through the game. It took a few more hours to realise what I was playing. I wasn’t playing a third-person survival horror game. I was playing a single-branch story in an engine I wish The Dark Pictures Anthology would use!
Like The Dark Pictures/The Quarry/Until Dawn, you have a small area to explore to an extent, then move on. That’s what The Callisto Protocol does – it always pushes you forward. Go back to a previous area? I don’t think so!
At the time I am writing this, I still haven’t finished The Callisto Protocol. I am pretty close, but I’m not quite there yet. The game has thrown it’s first bullet sponge boss at me, and I hope it’s the last one. Everything else up to this point has been pretty fun, but this guy has stopped all momentum for me!
If you were thinking of picking up The Callisto Protocol, I am enjoying it. But don’t think of it was along the same lines as the newer Resident Evil remakes for gameplay. Think of them like The Devil in Me, and you will likely enjoy yourself more.
It’s been a hot minute since I fired up Peglin. I was close to completing everything it had to offer. There was only one level of Cruciball left, which I got close to winning. So I said that I would wait for another round of updates, then pick up Peglin again.
After getting the Platinum for Bloodborne, I thought I would be powering through Pokemon Scarlet. It’s Pokemon – how more of a chill game can you get? But more on Pokemon later. This is how I got back into Peglin!
There are still no extra classes. You play as Peglin, same as before. But there is a major change from last time I played – shopping. Each level, there are certain pegs with gold that you collect when hitting them.
This adds a change to Peglin’s gameplay. Especially early on, I found myself throwing pegs with the intention of collecting gold, rather than trying to damage enemies. Do this too much though and you can take more damage than expected. Or as I did a couple of times limit your damage output and just miss beating bosses. I missed beating Peglin’s level 3 boss by 3 hit points because of limiting damage early in the game!
Encountering a shop (assuming you have gold) does offer lots of choices. A selection of orbs, powerups and the option to remove an orb is always on offer.
Peglin has a few other changes, such as new orbs and even bosses. The most exciting bit of news for me right now though is more Cruciball levels. I still haven’t made a big run through the last level I was at, but it’s nice to see all those levels waiting for me!
It was so nice to come back to Peglin after a frustrating couple of work weeks. I did come to bed late one night this week, much to Rabbit’s surprise. Peglin is combat Pachinko, sure. But it’s fun Pachinko, and is surprisingly addictive in its gameplay.
I mentioned last week that I started Pokemon Violet. I tried to get into it again this week. After getting the Platinum in Bloodborne, I thought I would have time to get into Pokemon. Well, I had the time, and with some long days at work, the basic RPG elements of Pokemon should have been a nice relax.
Truth is though I can’t get into Pokemon Violet. There is a bunch of buzz about ‘terrible’ graphics, poor frame rates, and other quirks. none of this is causing me issues in getting into the game. I wish I could put my finger on what the issue is – I just start playing and kind of mentally shrug.
The start of any RPG is the most dangerous time. Designers can’t throw you in too far in the deep end, or only a small percentage of players stick around. Hold the player’s hand too much though, and almost the same number of players walk away. It’s a balancing act. Game Freak and Pokemon have had their formula down pat for almost three decades! I knew what I was getting into, and Pokemon Violet was exactly what I expected.
Pokemon Violet is a very different game from the old-school Game Boy and DS versions. Newer games such as Pokemon Let’s Go and Pokemon Legends: Arceus started playing with the set formula. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the results of feedback from these games, and I like where Pokemon is going.
Here is the thing though. I have run around, done a couple of tutorial sections, but I haven’t had any urge to make progress. The story starts with essentially your first day at school, and I haven’t made it there yet.
Not because I am being distracted by side quests or hunting Pokemon early on. I just play for about 10-15 minutes and feel like putting Pokemon Violet away.
I want to play Pokemon Violet. Nothing about what I have been playing has put me off at all. There is even now a patch to help smooth out some of the complaints.
When I want to play visually impressive games, I don’t go to Nintendo games. Their hardware doesn’t push that particular envelope. I am not saying that Nintendo games haven’t looked good, only you can’t do God of War-style graphics on Nintendo hardware, and people seem to forget that.
I play Nintendo games because they tend to be fun and relaxing games to take my mind off the world. And I hope that this week, I turn some magical point in Pokemon Violet to get me invested.
What about you? I hope you got some great games in. Or are you looking forward to a new one? Let me know!
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Until next time,
JohnHQLD