October'23 overview

At least I played a lot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Date	Games owned	Added this month	Never played (monthly change)	Beaten/Completed during month
October'23	403	+6	126 (-1)	6

During month of October I once again got more games than I expected… I bought Happy Game and Rayman Legends, won Torn Away and Patch Quest on SG, got Rain on Your Parade as a gift for daughters birthday (and she actually manage to play most of levels by herself) and got The Bookwalker as a return thank you from the person (so technically it’s not a gift, but I still consider it a gift). In total my library became 6 games more heavier.

Games highlights of October:

• Remnant: From the Ashes
  

  25.8 hours playtime

  33 of 50 achievements

• Batman: Arkham City GOTY
  

  19.3 hours playtime

  35 of 64 achievements

• Bastion
  

  7.5 hours playtime

  9 of 24 achievements

• The Bookwalker
  

  7.1 hours playtime

  30 of 37 achievements

• Torn Away
  

  4.7 hours playtime

  32 of 35 achievements

• Happy Game
  

  3.1 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

Remnant: From the Ashes: I enjoyed this game even more than I expected. It is not as grindy as I thought (at least if you are aiming just to beat the story line on a standard difficulty but not to complete it on hard). Worlds you visit are pretty different, mobs have some actual difference between “bioms”, there are some secrets you can look for to make playing more fun, plenty of weapons/talents/modes to find “own style”. Storyline itself is not that great, probably because most of it is told through different notes you can find around. Or miss them.

DLC “Subject” was also good, I really liked how they made a puzzle from one of the locations, I couldn’t solve it myself and used tips from YouTube, but overall it was a very interesting quest. And how the story is told in the DLC is much more appealing - more cut scenes, less notes and questions :)

Should note that game wasn’t perfect. At first I started as melee character, but later understood I prefer mid range battles, even without mouse available. That was frustrating at some point as there is no way to re-distribute talent points (there is a way, but you have to finish main campaign first). And there was a huge bug in the very end of the Subject DLC: after dying in first battle with the last boss the portal to get back to him haven’t spawned… I was reloading game, region, tried going to adventure mode… Nothing helped. But after the reload of the Deck (because of software update) portal finally spawned and was usable. But I had some frustrating time with the issue.

Oh! One more thing: beating the bosses gives same good feeling as I got from Cuphead :) My rate is 7 out of 10.

Batman: Arkham City GOTY: It took me almost a year to start playing City after I finished Knight and Asylum. The game is good. Like really good. I rate Knight as 10 out if 10 and Asylum as 6 out of 10. And it no surprise that City for me was 8 out of 10 :) Playing it was very engaging. In no way this old game is outdated in 2023. Gameplay wise and graphic wise it is still good. If you missed the series as I did - pay attention to it ;)

Bastion: I liked the combat in this game, unlike its implementation in Transistor. Graphically the game is very nice, as is the sound. But since everything has so much in common in style and voices/music with Transistor, I couldn’t calmly enjoy all this without the stupid thought that pops up from time to time: “Well, they tried better in Transistor.” I finished it with interest, even though my ass was burning from replaying the last “mission” five times because of the crashes. But I was able to finish the main story without any extra violent compulsion against my will. And the plot… I had to watch YouTube after beating the game as I had quite a few questions left. The game is not bad, but it is 5 out of 10 at best.

The Bookwalker: Played it over the weekend and specifically went to drink green tea at lunch to finish it off on monday :)

Very enjoyable game. A lot of rough edges, but nothing that will actually ruin your impressions. I don’t know how close it is in spirit to Disco Elysium (many people talk about that), but having experience playing DE for about an hour, I didn’t see any similarities other than isometry.
It plays like a good point-click quest with an interesting story. Interesting design, setting and plot presentation. It was interesting to poke your nose into all the cracks and gradually learn more and more about the world in which you found yourself (although it seems that even the developers do not have answers to all the questions that may arise about the world). Each story within a story is also good and exciting. As for me, they managed to reach the level of good prose (when you are resting while reading and what you read have a sufficient number of plot twists so as not to get bored).

I didn’t quite appreciate the built-in combat mechanics: the vast majority of battles are about as interesting and action-packed as pressing the “skip battle” button. But as an element of gameplay diversity it’s quite OK. I was a little disappointed with the illusory nature of the existing choices in the game: in the first third of the game I still somehow tried to play the role based on the plot, but later I realized that I didn’t have to bother.

The only downsides to the game are the poor music component and the generally meager work with sound - whether with sound or without sound, the perception of the game does not change much.

The game is easy to read and the puzzles are also easy. The eye rejoices in the process. The game feels like watching a good TV series. I would definitely recommend taking a closer look at this sale for anyone who loves story-oriented adventure games and quests. My rate is 7 out of 10.

Torn Away: If we will brake the game into elements, then each of them is weak (except for graphics and sound - there are zero complaints here at all, and the work with sound in the game is generally very competent: the music, the sounds, and the way everything was mixed worked very well for the atmosphere). The game has rare platforming (which is almost bad), a walking simulator for an amateur, half-baked quests, inserts of graphic novels, 2D stealth… in general, there are really a lot of genres mixed in, and everything individually is implemented quite mediocre. But since all this is mixed up and works well for the atmosphere and immersion, it’s not particularly important, in my opinion. Apart from the platforming, nothing really bothered me.

It was sad to play it, the plot and presentation were quite depressing. But here I think it’s obvious. In general, the game gives emotions, in some places it creates a good feeling of loss, in others a feeling of hopelessness, but in my opinion they didn’t cope well with the feeling of fear. All these chases, fascists banging on doors and other hungry wolves weren’t very scary.

As an interactive story I rate it as 6 out of 10

Happy Game: I guess my expectations were too high. Game is good and worth its price during sales… But I expected more craziness. It was interesting experience but nothing actually remarkable. 5 out of 10.