Progress Report #4: April 2023
April was a weird month. At the end of March, I had surgery to get my gall bladder removed, so the first half of the month was spent recovering. Then, just as I was beginning to feel better, I had an allergic reaction to the surgical glue they used on my incisions and broke out in a huge rash of hives all across my stomach. Why did it take 2 weeks for this reaction to pop up?? I have no idea. I spent the next week being itchy and miserable. I had to attend a conference for work in the last week of April and was really worried about how I was going to manage traveling, between the hives and not being able to lift my luggage due to still being in recovery from surgery XD Finally, to top it all off, I tested positive for COVID (for the first time ever!) the night that I got back home from my trip. I'm currently still sick and still itchy, though both seem to be in the process of getting better, at least. Yeah, April was a lot.
In terms of games, I ended up hopping around a bunch and starting quite a few but not finishing any. Perhaps understandable given how nonsensical things were with all the other stuff going on. Honestly, I'm kind of glad I didn't finish any games, because that means I can keep this month's report extremely brief instead of attempting to write coherent reviews. Don't think I could manage that right now lol.
Played on Steam
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Coromon
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Lone Fungus
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Papa's Freezeria Deluxe
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DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT
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Ashina: The Red Witch
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Pair Of Stamps
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Daylife in Japan - Animated Jigsaw Puzzle Series
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Cozy Grove
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The Dungeon Vendor
Played on Switch
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Xenoblade Chronicles DE
37.4 hours playtime
80 of 200 achievements
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Pokemon Scarlet
4.7 hours playtime
23 of 400 pokemon
Played on Xbox
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Persona 5 Royal
5 hours playtime
1 of 52 achievements
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Moonglow Bay
2.5 hours playtime
0 of 37 achievements
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The Gunk
1 hour playtime
3 of 17 achievements
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Young Souls
4.3 hours playtime
7 of 33 achievements
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Aragami 2
1.1 hours playtime
1 of 44 achievements
Most Exciting Additions
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Re:Call
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DREDGE
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Garden in!
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Kabaret
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Yoko Redux: Dreams
I wish you best possible recovery!🙏 As someone who had to abruptly switch to a lifelong diet (diabetes) I can wish you a speedy adaptation to your diet and to find a tasty and legal treats that will delight you :)
And regarding the games… Just play for fun and don’t feel any obligation nor for reviewing nor for finishing them. Just have fun with them - that’s how it was originally intended :)
Thank you! I’m sorry to hear you’ve had to deal with that big life change! But glad you’ve been able to adapt :-)
As for the reviews, maybe I stated it a little too strongly haha. I don’t feel any external obligation to write reviews, but I always have a lot of thoughts on the games I play that I’d like to write down, so internally I’ve been trying to push myself to put together some actual reviews from those thoughts :-) plus I want to start posting my reviews on Steam for the smaller indie games that deserve a spotlight! But sometimes it can become overwhelming, so this month at least I’m glad I could forgo it XD
Absolutely agree that at the end of the day, having fun is the most important thing!
I love those ‘fake’ game boxes for Switch/Xbox games XD
Plus, the Most Exciting Additions section is a great idea! Dredge should be extra cool
Get better soon and let’s have a lot of fun in May ╰(▔∀▔)╯
Thank you!! May will be great! :D
Glad to hear you are feeling better :) And you gave (again) gotten some nice games that I def need to take a look at. How do you find Pokemon so far? I was gifted Violet this Christmas, but havent had a chance to try it yet
I’ll preface this by saying I did not grow up playing Pokemon, so your outlook may be different whether you’re a lifelong fan or not. I really like Scarlet! My experience with Pokemon games so far is pretty limited. I played quite a bit of Pokemon Go for a while, and I’ve played a handful of hours in Brilliant Diamond. Tried the beginning parts of a couple of the older games like Moon and HeartGold and also some of the newer ones like Shield and Arceus. And then I played a whole bunch of Coromon haha. I think Scarlet has a lot of much-needed QoL improvements. I like that you can just choose to run up to a wild pokemon and battle it or not, rather than having random encounters. I also like that other trainers don’t just ambush you and force you to battle them, but you can choose to interact with them or not. I like running around the open-world picking up poke balls and other items! And there is a lot more character customization this time around, I had a ton of fun making my character. There has also been a much larger variety of pokemon to encounter right from the start, which I love. I got kind of bored in Brilliant Diamond with only having a few basic pokemon to catch for the first few hours. I also like the mix of old and new pokemon, because that means even I can encounter ones that I recognize (mostly from pmon go), despite not having played it as a kid XD oh and I like how they handle the pokedex in Scarlet too, it’s a bit more visually interesting and fun to interact with.
I think complaints about the graphical quality are merited, for a $60 AAA it’s a bit disappointing to see so many jagged edges and blurry textures, but I honestly don’t know if that’s Game Freak’s fault or just the limitations of the Switch. At any rate, it didn’t stop me from enjoying the game so far haha. As far as performance issues I’ve mostly just noticed a bit of lagginess, especially with NPCs you see in the distance, they can kinda look like they’re running in slow motion lol.
Oof that was a lot of health issues, I’m glad you’re recovering and I hope you feel completely better soon. Take care!
Congrats on the backlog progress though, even scattered progress is something. And congrats on the really nice additions!! I keep reading great things about Dredge, I hope it’s as good as it sounds.
Thanks! Yeah, I got to play some really fun (and hefty) games this month. I was delighted to find that I really love Xenoblade Chronicles! And I’m loving Persona 5 Royal too, now that I’ve started it. So I might be hooked on some non-Steam games for a while :D I may have gotten burned out on Coromon and Lone Fungus for now, but I’m hoping to at least finish Papa’s Freezeria and Ashina in the near future. Ashina in particular has a killer aesthetic and music and is super entertaining!
OMG what an eventful month! (And sadly mostly in a bad way). I’m glad you’re getting better…May can only be better!
And please don’t feel obligated to write reviews…this is supposed to be fun, right?
Thank you! As for the reviews, maybe I stated it a little too strongly haha. I don’t feel any external obligation to write reviews, but I always have a lot of thoughts on the games I play that I’d like to write down, so internally I’ve been trying to push myself to put together some actual reviews from those thoughts :-) plus I want to start posting my reviews on Steam for the smaller indie games that deserve a spotlight! But sometimes it can become overwhelming, so this month at least I’m glad I could forgo it XD
Absolutely agree that at the end of the day, having fun is the most important thing!
Yep, I get what you’re saying. It’s nice to write reviews to help spotlight indie games, and I’m glad you weren’t feeling too much pressure.