No significant progress this week, just a little bit of Witch on the Holy Night and Astalon: Tears of the Earth.

Tempted to start Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian because I think it’s a game that will work better with my current mood.

There’s also storage costs.

In a world where games can easily be dozens of GB and storage is at a premium (thanks, AI companies) having physical media with most of the game data on it makes it a lot easier to juggle between games.

SP is always your bottleneck since you have healing spells from the beginning (Morgana comes with Dia).

Which is why it gets easier later on to complete palaces in one go, some confidants will get you access to SP regen accessories and ways to create SP recovery items.

Wanted to do it all in one day, but don’t think it was possible.

It’s possible for certain palaces, but others have story-related moments where you’re forced to go back to the real world and come back again in another day.

I did all the palaces in P5R in the minimum amount of days (in other words, only went back midway if the story forced me), but it was more of a personal challenge since I was already familiar with the game due to me beating “vanilla” P5 in the past.

It’s honestly a major pain in the first couple palaces since you don’t have good options for refilling SP, and probably not worth it unless you want to challenge yourself, but became fairly easy to do on later ones.

@slimerancher@lemmy.world I definitely recommend reading the first spoiler above. Missing that makes you lose a huge chunk of content, it’s bad enough that I always say “spoilers be damned” and tell that to any friend of mine that plays P5R.

You cannot complete all confidants

It’s definitely possible, I did it my first run through Royal with some time left over. But I agree that this game is better enjoyed if you don’t stress trying to get all confidants maxed.

The easiest option if you want to play MTG without the need to keep updating is to buy some Commander Preconstructed decks (ideally from the same set) and keep them unmodified.

These decks meant to be played against each other and usually well balanced. Just find a collection with aesthetics that appeal to you, get 3-4 and have fun. There’s the option of “in-universe” sets with classic MTG aethetics like Tarkir, Lorwyn or Bloomburrow, or “crossover” sets with popular IPs - they just released TMNT, and there’ll be Marvel and Startrek later this year.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Commander by far the most popular way to play MTG - but also the most complex one.

It’s free-for-all multiplayer mode with politics, singleton 100-card decks and crazy interactions. If you have an MTG-playing friend they should be able to help you get started, but otherwise I’d suggest playing the free Magic Arena game which has some good tutorials, or look for Youtube videos - there’s a ton of content to help people get started.

Very little gaming time since since I’ve been busy with a Magic the Gathering project - building on a box of Premodern decks, a “nostalgia” format with only cards printed between 1995 and 2003.

I don’t have the time or interest to keep up with the crazy speed of MTG releases nowadays, so this type of format that doesn’t require updates suits me better. The idea is to have a bunch of decks ready and use it as a board game of sorts, just pick up a couple decks and play any time we feel like it.

Will still be working on this for a few more weeks, but now that I got the lists defined and I finished organizing which cards I own and which cards I need to buy/trade I should have more time for gaming again.

Playing Witch on the Holy Night!

Progressing through Chapter 8.

Playing Astalon: Tears of the Earth!

Current side-game. An old-school metroidvania with 3 different characters (the classic “warrior, mage, archer” trio), each with different strenghts, weaknesses, and traversal abilities. The map design is great with interesting puzzles, the challenge is “just right” so far and bosses are fun. I think the balance between characters is not great (mage seems way better than the other two), but that’s not a major issue.

However… the checkpoint system really sucks. Health recovery is very limited and anytime you die you go back to the entrance of the castle. Sure, there’s some fast travel spots and you unlock a ton of shortcuts so getting back to where you were before will be much faster than before, but these runbacks get tedious very quickly. I’d also like to add that the key required to use the fast travel is a missable item, which is just mean in a game with this design.

That’s a massive improvement in some games for those who play handheld. Probably should’ve been there from the start, but it’s good that Nintendo finally implemented it.

Playing Trails Beyond the Horizon!

Finished Van Routes 4 and 5, Kevin Route 2, and I’m now progressing through Rean Route 3. Probably in the last third of the game, but with my current schedule I think it’ll still take me a couple weeks to get to the ending.

Fully focused on Horizon so no progress on other games.

For beginners I’d recommend Drainus among traditional ("non bullet hell¨) shmups and Danmaku Unlimited 3 on the easiest settings for bullet hell.

And if you enjoy Danmaku Unlimited 3 I’d go for Crimzon Clover next, it’s one of the best games in the genre. It’s significantly harder even on Novice, but still beatable with some pratice.

A bit early to tell. There’s a lot of things being set up in all three routes, so the payoff will say how this game will end up in my ranking.

But I will say it’s looking very promising so far.

Playing Trails Beyond the Horizon!

Currently on Act 3, Van Route 4. The end of the previous act was a very interesting surprise and a great character moment.

Fully focused on Horizon so no progress on other games.

why not just upgrade to Switch 2

I will pick one up eventually, but right now it’s being held back by the combo of “only Bananza as an exclusive I care about”, “high console price”, “high SD Express price” and “game key carts”.

Besides Bananza the only Switch 2 games I have in my wishlist are “Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave” (no release date yet) and “The Adventures of Elliot” (June). All recently announced ports fall into “if I cared about those I’d already own a PS5”.

$450 for the Switch 2 is pricy, adding another $200 if I simply want to have the same 1TB I have on the Switch 1 makes it sting a lot more.

Game keys make everything much worse - I refuse to buy those as a game collector, so for a lot of games I’d end up picking up the Switch 1 version anyway (this includes Trails Beyond the Horizon) or wait for a heavily discounted digital (meaning I wouldn’t be playing them for 1-2 years). And it also adds to the storage problem too.

Playing Trails Beyond the Horizon!

Quite a bit of progress, I’m on the latter half of Act 2 having just finished the second part of the Rean route.

Seems like the route splits aren’t quite like Reverie, with Van’s side taking most of the playtime (I’d say his team gets 50-60% of the game), but despite their reduced playtime the other two routes have been far more interesting. The end of latest Rean section brought a major reveal that has me extremely interested in direction the story is going alongside a long-waited battle where they nailed both custscenes and challenge.

One thing I haven’t commented before is the quality of the Switch 1 version, which has some really odd problems - it keeps going back and forth between “this looks pretty good” and “extremely low-res and blurry” very abruptly and all the time. It’s very distracting, and given how much worse it looks than Daybreak 1/2 (which AFAIK runs on the same engine) I think they messed up something in this port.

Fully focused on Horizon so no progress on other games.

My wishlist is kinda empty right now.

If I get a Switch 2 I’m interested in the new Fire Emblem (plus Bananza which is already out), and maybe Adventures of Elliot depending on the reviews. Other than that I only have the two games from Falcom (Kyoto Xanadu and Trails in the Sky 2) and the new Professor Layton game.

Of all of these I think only Adventures of Elliot has a release date and it’s only in June!

Mario Tennis is not my cup of tea.

I’ve tried DQ games before but I almost never liked them enough to finish, 5 being the main exception. So while I might give 7 a shot it’s probably a “pick it up with a big discount” situation.

Wow, it’s friday already? This week flew by so fast, was really busy with my new job.

Playing Trails Beyond the Horizon!

Finished Act 1, and looks like from Act 2 onwards we’ll get a split storyline between Van, Rean and Kevin.

I went with Rean’s route, and this first section has them arriving at Basel, learning the lay of the land then going into a mock battle against the Republic’s new mech, the beautiful Excalibur.

Van’s route will be next.

Playing Super Robot Wars Y!

DLC2 has arrived so it’s time to get back to this game.

This DLC includes Steel Jeeg which got a LOT of love in the animation department, plus an alternate universe Getter Robo and Da Garn from the Brave Series.

So far this DLC has been on the easy side, I guess it isn’t balanced for endgame units with Level 99+ and tons of upgrades, but I’m having fun. Curious if the new storyline will be as interesting as the one from DLC1.

With two of my favorite series to keep my busy and a lot to do at work I didn’t get any progress on Hades 2 or Witch on the Holy Night.

Thankfully there’s no major game release I’m interested this month and we have an extended holiday coming soon (Carnival!) so I hope I’ll be able to go back to these games soon.

I like it a lot. It was clearly developed by Falcom’s “B-Team” but has a lot of heart.

It’s a mix of Ys-style action gameplay (though not as polished), current-world setting with supernatural elements like Persona, and Trails-style sidequesting. Cast is great, story is classic anime-style “superpowered high-schoolers fighting monsters” and they fully embrace it, I love how they even replay the game opening at the beginning of each chapter as it if was a new “Episode”.

The OST is amazing.

Excited for Kyoto Xanado (I love the previous game), and good to get a release date for the Aventures of Elliot.

Not much else for me though. Tons of ports of games I don’t care enough or I’d already own a PS5.

Yes! And in two weeks we have an extended holiday here in Brazil for me to play like crazy.