bliss lane
The Bowery Presents
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
RMH
Xuebing Du
occasionally subtle
The Stonewall Inn
Not today Justin
art blog(derogatory)
almost home
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
we're not kids anymore.
Jules of Nature
Stranger Things
No title available
d e v o n
h
noise dept.
seen from Malaysia
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@bainhardt
oh yeah I started of the Devil completely blind last night and early in chapter 0 I was thinking "oh man imagine if there was one of these detective VNs where they did [imagined scenario here]" and then by the end of chapter 0 the game was exactly that so I'm expecting to enjoy the rest quite a bit
some good good Glolf
first shiny of #SafariWeek 2026 has blessed me before the event's even officially started... because I've been double hunting HGSS Safari Zone since the last checkpoint on my SoulSilver Badge Quest, almost an entire year ago. if anything, it's impressive that it took this long to find something! a whopping 21912 encounters logged, and my new longest single phase to date, beating the old record by just 14.
well I took a brief tour through some of the older, odder Bomberman games (except Wars, which I may try another time because holy shit) and didn't find myself particularly hooked into any of them but I DID get to see a lot of different pictures of Pommy as compensation
Pocket and Tournament are even two I remember having back in the day and expected to be struck by nostalgia and tempted to finish them like so many other childhood games but not this time
got onto a random train of thought where I became curious about the history of the Bomberman series and can I just point out the hilarious contrast before and after the franchise's total acquisition by Konami
is that... daylight? there's something wrong with the Awful Silly Block Eating Simulator at SGDQ 2026, because it's starting bright and early! regardless, the judges agree: shitty wizard @sianea and I must manually watch as always. this is not the one that got away, for some reason.
with a record-breaking 16 games this was our longest day of school yet, but I can share my notes:
10 Snoopys move slower than 9
heros is not spelled with an E, but Dr. Wiley is
there are 22 ways to die in the year 2027
truffles are like mushrooms, only better
that'll be 1.5 million dollars, please!
thinking about it watching the SotN run on SGDQ -
I'd say modern metroidvanias became much more palatable for me thanks to two specific game design choices that caught on after the Soulslike boom: Estus-style refillable heal-on-the-go, and enemies that stay defeated until X reset condition
cuz the main thing that bothered me trying to play older ones (even revisiting titles like Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow on my Castlevania binge) was how inelegantly these games employed enemies as copy-paste hurdles to exploration. kinda like random encounters
obviously I'm generalizing (for example I really enjoyed Ori BF, which handled enemies in a completely different way), but I think it holds true. even in games that don't directly cite Souls as inspiration, certain systems like this are everywhere, and I think for good reason
after many long years we've finally gotten the complete trio on GDQ stages
bruh I swear I was lying half awake in bed earlier absentmindedly flexing and tensing my jaw and something audibly "clunked" somewhere in my skull and my tinnitus went away?? or decreased somehow? there's still a bit in my right ear but that's where it started around 8 years ago and now it sorta feels like it did back in the beginning. like the volume went down compared to before
idk, you'd think it'd be extremely obvious but it's surprisingly harder than I thought to tell if it's actually changed. that and I'm just waiting for it to come back at any moment somehow
oh like see now I think it came back. wtf man. I don't even know anymore. I swear somethin happened when I was in bed that was good for it, somehow
most of the achievements for Crescent Tower were entirely reasonable. even the post-game "super boss" didn't take much more than maybe an hour additional play after finishing, reworking the party to be stronger and better equipped. but the hardest single task according to the people posting in the Steam discussions is collecting every item. it's just cranking away at an RNG slot machine over and over, with very few optimizations to be made.
going off my playtime, it took me about six additional game hours to round off the 40-50 items I hadn't initially gotten. I even capped out the in-game money counter. and each monster has a super-rare drop, with odds originally cited as 1/128, though I can't attest to whether or not that's been patched.
it certainly felt like it, though.
I say this as someone who shiny hunts Pokemon regularly- this is one of the most brain-meltingly boring grinds I've done in a game in a very long time, and very nearly tanked my opinion of the game (as far as recommending games based on achievement hunting goes, at least). oh well.
finally got through Crescent Tower, a modern-retro RPG that stood out to me from next fest a while back. hits like a happy marriage between Etrian Odyssey and early Final Fantasy. bought it back in December and only got about halfway done before losing steam for a while. it's just one of those games when you get down to it.
what I like best about it are all the ways you can tell the designer's love of retro RPGs allowed them to design around some of the common pain points and come up with something fairly streamlined. as examples go, there's no Inn function whatsoever and your party just fully heals every time you return to town (except for dead characters). the magic system is original FF-style with spell slots for each level of magic, but the Elf race (or later, anyone wearing the right gear) can meditate once each combat to restore 1 slot of every level. the game is structured around filling in your dungeon map floor by floor using torches and maps, but eventually you learn magic or even passive skills that can handle mapping, lighting, and unlocking doors. everything is built to relax whatever annoyance or upkeep cost may present itself initially until eventually, you're breezing along. I thought it was well done.
that said, the endgame is still a bit of a slog, mostly because I hadn't taken full advantage of the class system and was still slumming it in base classes by the time I reached the final floor. had to insert one of those old-fashioned level grinding montages. nothing horribly painful, especially considering my entire playthrough only took about 12 hours, but still a reminder that regardless of design or era, RPGs are gonna ask for your patience sooner or later.
I can't stop watching this funny little blue thingie
lightly dipping into next fest again and the whole time I was sampling this fully 3D, seemingly high-effort strategy game Brigandine Abyss
I couldn't stop thinking "this isn't even half as fun as Silver Blade of Gods' End" and I felt so bad about it
sometimes I'm just minding my business and some thought like "has anyone ever made a metroidvania set on the titanic" passes through my head and then I never think about it again
finished my first clear of Blasphemous 2 last night and continue chipping away at 100% achievement progress. I think my initial impressions hold true and I enjoyed the game, but definitely less than B1 (and Nine Sols, which felt very similar)
scattershot thoughts: the bossfights seemed easier and less fun than in B1, though I liked a couple. I think the new movement tech (metroidvania standbys double jump and air dash) emphasize I-Frame dodge interactions in fights rather than more traditional platforming Move Your Ass out of the way, and faaaar less parrying. I was beyond thrilled when the final guy pulled that red sword out and I had to start parrying; I'd been itching for a Crisanta-level fight the entire game. Visual communication suffered some inconsistencies, and I never knew which kind of magic attacks I could break with a sword swing or parry vs which I could not. sprite art is beautiful as ever, and there are some really impressive new area themes. some of my quibbles with new systems are relaxed as you progress, for example the ability to change out Altar statues at prie dieus
finally bought Blasphemous 2 after it went on sale for like 7 bucks. playing both Blasphemous games ultimately cost me less than 10 dollars. and that's just wild.
not finished but so far... it passes all the baselines you'd expect for control/graphics/etc set by the first (even if I do think the execution animations for most enemies are lamer than before). but I'm finding myself enjoying the design a lot less, like the new upgrade systems, multiple weapons, overall feeling more "metroidvania." I don't like the wooden statues at all - there was something comfortable in B1 about having the option to change out all the different "build" items anytime you like on the fly
I don't think I'm going to dislike B2 particularly by the time I'm done, but I'll also be shocked if I come anywhere close to liking it as much as the first. I hold the original in high regard for feeling very tightly designed, unique, and satisfying, and the second feels broadly more experimental (which I can't begrudge), but to more mixed results