“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – #017
8 min read
A weekly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
Happy Friday the 13th! Whether you’re marathoning the grisly adventures of one Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th for the NES, anyone?), staying in to avoid any and all sorts of bad luck, or (if you’re like our oddball, caffeine-obsessed deputy editor of this column) soaking up all kinds of positive vibes because your lucky number is 13, we here at The Pixels hope you have a good day today! So, let’s get lucky and see what our writers were up to this week!
Oddly slow week for me, in terms of gaming. I had to skip out on my Sunday stream, partly because it was Mother’s Day, partly because I had to finish writing a short story and partly because… I was tired, haha.
Looking back, I’m glad I decided to switch my Tuesday and Thursday streams to noon instead of the early morning. Not only am I getting better viewership, but Kid Espresso has taken to waking up right at 6:30 in the morning – mid-way through my usual time! In any case, progress on Oracle of Ages is going well! Six out of Eight Essences of Time have been collected AND we rescued Nayru from the clutches of Veran. Now, the Sorceress of Shadows has possessed Queen Ambi instead and is still wreaking havoc in the past to spread sorrow throughout the land. So, we have to find the next Essence – which is in the belly of a fish?
Oh Gods, Water Temple vibes are imminent.
Off-stream, I have finally finished CrossCode and it was so emotional to watch how it all ends. The final approach to the last dungeon, the dungeon itself and even the final boss fight were simply epic to behold! Speaking of the final boss, I found it hilarious how it would break the game by giving itself incremental and exponential health buffs – to the point where it has millions upon millions of HP. The only way Lea could fight back was for Sergey – her background engineering wizard helping her throughout the journey – to employ several hacks to increase her attack power in order to match the final boss’ health buff. It’s super crazy and awesome at the same time! Easily one of my favourite parts of the game.
After finishing it, I’ve come to love this game dearly. So much so that I’ve picked up the DLC right after the end credits. I have that to keep me busy for some time until all the summer releases come out!
My playthrough of Tales of Arise continues. I’ve put in a few hours this week and my goal is to be finished within the next week. I recently got to the part that is probably considered act 2, where the story hits a pivotal point, and you unlock a 2nd opening to the game. I’ve really been enjoying the increase in CP (Cure Points) as I have about 400 now, and it feels like the game has gotten a bit easier due to that. With more CP, I can survive longer without using items, because CP is required for recovery and support arts. In terms of story, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and I’m enjoying the game a bit more so far now that I got some focus. I do hope I can put this game behind me soon though, because I’ve started this playthrough in December, so I’m a bit focused on getting it out of the way so that I can finally start Xenogears.
More Elden Ring and more The Last of Us Part II! This is where most of my time has been going towards. On Elden Ring, I’m still making very slow progress, but I just love the exploration so much that I always feel like looking at every nook and cranny. I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. On the other hand, I feel like I’m making pretty quick progress in TLoU2. Just like I did with the first, I’m playing through it on hard mode. I enjoy scavenging for resources, though I do find myself being full a lot of the time. I guess I’m just too good at stealth kills that I rarely make use of my ammo and other equipment.
Another game I decided to try out one random streaming night is called A Memoir Blue. It’s an interactive story-driven narrative based around a woman and her memories of the past. It’s incredibly short as I finished it within two hours, though I could’ve probably done it quicker if I wasn’t distracted by chat. The entire story is told without text or dialogue so it’s up to the player to interpret what is going on. It’s easy to understand and the interactive elements are all pretty basic. If you’re looking for a quick, easy-going experience that’s filled with emotion and touching moments then A Memoir Blue is one I’d recommend. Especially if you have Xbox Gamepass.
With a 45-hour runtime in a little over a week, I beat Fantasy Life. Far from 100%ing it, though. According to HowLongToBeat.com, it can take upwards of 200 hours to do everything that game has available. Basically, the story is short (maybe 7 hours of my 45) but the content is deep. A good chunk unlocks postgame as well. However, at the point I was in, I was already starting to feel the grind. Sidequests were going from “kill 5 monsters” to “kill 30”, and when only 5 or 6 spawn in an area at a time, it gets tedious. There were still challenges available to me in the form of high-difficulty monsters that I couldn’t even see movement on their health bar and two-hit kills on me, but it’s time for me to move on to other things. I really enjoyed that time with it, though.
So what’s next? Well, I tried my hand at a few games this last week on stream, showing them off for a dear friend whose birthday was recently and I thought they were games she’d like. The first one, Hob, is a gorgeous, wordless action-adventure game. It’s a bit easy to get lost or miss something to interact with, though. The second game, Hypnospace Outlaw, is…difficult to describe. Big Brother on late 1990s Geocities websites? I guess that’s the most succinct way to describe it. It’s weird, it’s silly, and it parodies everything you knew and loved and hated about the early days of the internet and self-built HTML design. I adore it.
And finally, I haven’t delved into it yet, but my backer copy of Eiyuden Chronicle Rising has arrived, and I’m excited to try it! I love the Suikoden series, so getting this first taste of the spiritual successor’s world has been something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.
Maybe I’m finding myself in a post-Elden Ring slump at the moment, but I’m struggling to find many games that are holding my attention. I took a chance on Trek To Yomi this week and that’s been a big ol’ mixed bag for me. The game is absolutely beautiful, with its black and white aesthetic evoking samurai movies of old, and I looked forward to seeing each new environment. The storyline was a really good one, although the fourth chapter dragged at a snail’s pace. I was practically shouting at the screen “For goodness’ sake! You’re in purgatory, dude!” like it was the early 2000s and I was watching Lost all over again.
The gameplay was a mixture of fixed-camera Onimusha-esque exploration and simple puzzles, stuffed in-between 2D Prince of Persia style sword fights. Except somehow the game manages to not quite add up to the sum of its parts. The combat became too repetitive too quickly for my liking, and I found myself getting extremely frustrated to the point where I turned the game off and said “Nah, that’s enough.” If it had taken advice from Limbo and kept the puzzles coming thick and fast, I could probably have appreciated it a lot more, but as it is? It’s a journey I might not have the patience to complete.
It warms my heart to see my kids get into video games, especially after they finish their homework and clean their rooms. We recently acquired a PS3 from a friend who was cleaning house, and along with that wonderful system came a copy of Minecraft. Both my daughter and son, who are ages 11 and 14 respectively, only get along when they are playing that game together. Sure, I have never personally understood the appeal of that game, but if my kids love it, then it can’t be that bad, right?
Of course, they have to go to bed eventually, and that is when daddy gets to play his games. Along with continuing my journey through Halo Infinite’s multiplayer heaven, which is a hell of an experience, I decided to look at Bethesda’s sprawling library of FPS goodness. I landed upon Wolfenstein: The New Order, a game which, in my opinion, outdoes the modern retelling of Doom in both story and gameplay. Playing as a soldier who fights through an experimentation compound to kill a madman designated “Deathshead,” the story branches out over the course of nearly two decades as the Nazis claim power over the globe. It is a difficult FPS, even on the easiest modes, and the brutality is cranked up to 11, so only dive into this one if you are ready for a rough, and bloody good time.
It’s a quarter after 10, I’m an editor again and I need blog now. Said I wouldn’t write but I lost the will to fight and I need blog now. This was a pretty uneventful week for me with game playing. Most of my big pickups were last week so I’m just kind of chugging along playing Dragon Quest Builders 2 on Switch OLED, which makes the experience cozy and delicious. I’m chewing through these chapters to unlock everything and I really can’t wait to get the freedom to build ANYTHING on my private island. That’s where I excel in these kinds of games.
Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition came in physical from Play-Asia, so that’s gonna enter the circulation at some point. I also experienced the equivalent of the loss of a bet: I have been triple dog dared into playing that pirates bust buffing RPG that just came out. Don’t Google that at work. What have I done?
~Red
So, what were you playing this week?
Ryan Cheddi – our friendly, neighbourhood caffeine addict – is a man of many talents: an engineer, a gaming historian, a fiction writer and a streamer. He is also a self-avowed Sonic the Hedgehog fan. You can check out his cool beans at his site – Games with Coffee – or find him on Twitter as @GameswCoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
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