Ran the retro gauntlet again for console Gen 3 and started a new attack plan on modern gaming.
Every day I game I start with the retro for the generation I'm covering that month. This month is Gen 3 which is NES, mainly. I go down IGN's list of top 100 games and stick with the ones I like best. I've gone through the first 14 and so far Dragon Quest (Warrior) and Final Fantasy have become my regular plays. I'm at level 10 in DQ and 13 in Final Fantasy.
What I played this week and didn't stick with were: R.C. Pro Am, Contra and Excite Bike. Not sticking isn't an indication of quality, just my level of personal interest. However, I gained new respect for R.C. Pro Am and Excite Bike both of which have a level of complexity I didn't fully appreciate the first time I played them years ago. R.C. Pro Am has pickups and combat mechanics and Excite Bike gives you much more control over your bike than I expected. Contra is just hard. I never really got into the series until Alien Wars on SNES.
My new modern game tack is, instead of metacritic's list, to go down every release listed on wikipedia for this year and see what looks interesting and what I have access to to try. When I run out of games I want to play, I go into last year. I'm up through December 2023. I watched a lot of trailers and found a surprising amount of demos. I thought demos were dead. Between that and Game Pass, I had a lot to check out.
Lightyear Frontier: on Game Pass. It's a neat survival game. You have a mech with lots of tools and a colorful alien world to explore and build in. I found something about it annoying though and stopped. Probably I'm just not into a open ended world of crafting with few notions of how to do it. I'm not reinventing the wheel here people, I'm trying to have fun.
A Little to the Left: demo I believe. A simple puzzle game where you arrange things in different orders and alignments. The problem was my controller is baffo and was difficult to control. Both my analog sticks have terrible drift in them which in a game with a simple selection grid is infuriating. It's very hard to select single things quickly. You're always fighting the drift. I have to get a new one pronto.
Story of Seaons: Friend of Mineral Town: demo, I think. Quite nice. I think I got a little bored of it though. There are no real missions per say just do what you want. I like a little more direction than that. Maybe that was it.
Train Sim World 4: on Game Pass. I played through several of the tutorials and got farther than the last time I tried this series. It doesn't do a great job of explaining things, although this iteration is better than previous ones. I got stuck trying to couple cars together though, darn it.
Howl: This is an interesting puzzle style game. Each level is turn-based on a grid. You try and complete the level, saving villagers, and slaying beasts in as few moves as possible. It has a lovely hand drawn look to it too. I got a bit tired of strategizing though and stopped.
PlateUp!: On Game Pass and just like another cooking game I played recently. Top-down and hectic gameplay as you try and cook and serve customers in a timely manner. I somewhat dislike these time constraints as I have worked in such environments in real life and it isn't pleasant.
MLB The Show 24: On Game Pass. I was dubious but after choosing my control scheme for every aspect of the game, it became quite fun. You have four modes for control of pitching, hitting, base running and fielding, so you can make it as arcady or simulation style as you want. Kinda great. I played a 9 inning game and I think I'll keep playing it next week.
Persona 3 Reload: On Game Pass. Oh I'm getting hooked on this. I haven't fought anything yet, just exploring the dorm, school and strip mall so far, but I'm liking it. I've played some of this series before and possibly even this specific game when it was on PS2. I remember getting a copy long ago to check out. The design of this remaster reminds me of handheld versions though like on PSP or Vita.
Skull and Bones: demo. The ship battles at the start were fun but the exploration and crafting after that just reminded me of survival games where you have to figure out everything and there's no particular story to follow. Just not my thing right now.
Disney Dreamlight Valley: This came up again because of new DLC. I tried to restart from where I left off probably almost two years ago now but found myself unsure of some of the controls. So I wiped the slate clean and started over again. I enjoy it, doing tasks for Disney characters and visiting Disney movie worlds. I think I'll keep playing it in bursts for a while.
I couldn't bear to remove Forza Horizon 5 for my new approach so I played through the seasonal playlist again and tried to finish the Offroad Rally DLC missions until I got fatigued and started losing races. It's difficult to keep switching cars a lot like the playlist has you doing because you have to get used to a new feel. Each car handles a little differently and sometimes they have weaknesses that are hard to overcome without long practice or careful upgrades. I should try and come up with a few favorites I can get really good with but often a playlist race will require a certain class or model of car. It can be annoying even though it's fun to try new cars. I'll be still playing this every week.
Finally, I'm trying to boost my MS rewards points because I'm not sure I'm going to make my goal this month. So I started playing some Vampire Survivor on my phone via the Game Pass app. It works really well on a phone, no extra grip necessary. I can get my daily points when I'm not at my console, which is half of my week.
That's about it. I'm already starting a list for Generation 4 for April. That's Game Boy, SNES, and Genesis mainly. It's all I can do to resist starting it now even though I already have so much on my plate. I'm a gluton for gaming, I guess.
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