September Update:

Not every single game on the line-up this month was incredible but I am pretty sure that for star count, this month is gonna be the one to beat. If that’s even possible. It’s also a little bittersweet because while I’m thrilled, I’m also a little sad that 2 of my favorite, oldest and most played games have come to a close. Also finishing 3 ten star games in one month sets the bar so high it’s a little intimidating when looking at my backlog looking for something to play next. 8)

But there is a lot of ground to cover and a lot of raving so let’s get started!

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• 7 Wonders of the Ancient World
  

  5 hours playtime

  no achievements

• VVVVVV
  

  10 hours playtime

  9 of 19 achievements

• Forgotten, Not Lost - A Kinetic Novel
  

  4 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• Cube Runner
  

  4 hours playtime

  41 of 41 achievements

• Last Dream
  

  104 hours playtime

  153 of 236 achievements

• Desktop Dungeons
  

  1000 hours playtime

  35 of 35 achievements

• Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal-
  

  12 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Sound of Drop - fall into poison -
  

  20 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

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7 Wonders [09/02]: ★★★★✰✰✰✰✰✰
I’m not quite sure why I bothered finishing this. I’m pretty certain that the later 7 Wonders games are going to be a lot better, even if the fairly simple match/puzzle mechanics remain the same. Its age really shows in a bad way though, and it’s also very ugly.

vvvvvv [09/04]: ★★★★★★★★★★ [SG Win]
Oh. My God. The entire reason I kept entering giveaways for this game, was this one SG user (and if I had only known, I’d have made it a point to remember who) said in the description of a giveaway that this was his favorite game on all of steam and he wanted to share it with others. I didn’t even know the person from the site, but I entered the giveaway (and lost). But their having such a high opinion of something that looked so small and simple just stuck with me. So I put it on my wishlist and kept entering giveaways and eventually won it. I’m not even a fan of platformers really.

Or at least I didn’t used to be, so I thought. Not since the good old days of NES, SNES and Genesis games, but even then, I don’t enjoy platformers like I used to. But that’s all changed and now I’m sort of addicted to them, chasing the feeling that vvvvvv gave me when I played it. I’ve yet to find one that fills the void. Back to vvvvvv though. Its short, it’s small, it’s insanely difficult (but fair) and it’s… perfectly crafted. Cute and bright with just enough story for a game of its type, interesting and unique while feeling really familiar. It’s not just like an NES game, it might as well be an NES game. I have never experienced anything that captured both freshness and nostalgia so well at the same time. And the more I played it, the more I appreciated how well made it really is.

The only reason I’m not still playing it to death, is that there is nothing left for me to do. The remaining achievements all revolve around things that only someone with a much higher skill level could accomplish (like permadeath LOL), but I have seen and done everything I can in vvvvvv’s world. And I loved every single hellish moment of it.

I’d love a sequel to this - guiding poor Verdigris, Vermilion, Victoria, Violet, Viridian and Vitellary through another, longer glitched dimension. Godspeed, little space explorers.

Forgotten, Not Lost - A Kinetic Novel [09/08]: ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰ [SG Win]
Okay, look. I completely get what was attempted in this VN and it didn’t totally fail. I actually liked a fair bit of it. But it really needs polishing, improvement and lots of help with the clunky English translation to score better. Which is actually a shame because there’s something really nice under all the clutter and clunk. It has heart, for sure but all the writing mistakes unfortunately interfere with making impact during important scenes and that’s not good, especially with such serious and sad subject matter as dementia.

Cube Runner [09/08]: ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰
A short and sweet little runner game. This is the first runner I ever played so I don’t have much to say as far as overall quality goes but I really liked it and loved the music. Its colorful and fun. The reason it’s got so few stars here is the same reason it took me months to finish an hour to an hour and a half long game: the last 5 levels and I don’t get along. I saw nothing about it in the forums but I had constant freezes and crashing in random spots. I am just glad it’s over at this point which is sad because the first few dozen levels were great until the problems started. Then it was just a trial of patience to slog through it since it would take some 60 odd tries to make it to the finish line with the game still working.

Last Dream [09/13]: ★★★★★★★★★★
This was a birthday present back in 2015 from one of my closest friends. He just picked a couple of things from my wishlist. And neither of us could have imagined that this RPGmaker game would become one of my favorite games ever made. But oh boy, is it. And with that being the case unless it’s something unique like The Deed or Space Pilgrim I have no need for any other RPGmaker games.

I don’t know how much of the assets are stock and quite frankly I don’t care. It’s magic. Pure magic. The story is perhaps a little loose (like old school build-your-own party rpgs tend to be) and cliche, most of it taking place through flashbacks and npcs in towns, but it works. The music is various and diverse royalty free music from dozens of composers and it’s absolutely fantastic. This is one game where I would never turn down the music to play my own instead (which is very rare for me to say) even when grinding. The ending is also ridiculously satisfying and very very long, checking back in with every major npc you helped along the way and apparently the choices you make affects their fates as well.

The gameplay is basically just like the first 6 Final Fantasy games but expanded and with all the old inconveniences removed. Its an old school game through and through but with modern quality of life improvements to all aspects of gameplay. The menus are massive but never a chore to use. I actually procrastinated beating this for a long time just because I didn’t want to retire it. Which is silly because there are still many things to do, and an expansion was recently released.

I just bought the expansion in the summer sale and I expect to be loading my overleveled lv 95 babies into the new game soon. Or maybe not. I might not retire this game because there are still achievements for things like speedrunning, or the ultimate gauntlet of combining options “no saving in dungeons/grind encounter rate/legendary difficulty” and game+ options. With such a backlog I should probably move on – at least to the expansion, but I already miss playing Last Dream in the few weeks that have passed. And if that doesn’t say something I guess nothing will.

*Kali, sorry I decimated you. (Beating the ultimate too hard world boss was bittersweet for sure because if that can’t kill me, nothing will). Also Knight, Gray Mage, Black Belt, Black Mage is the best party. It seems the general consensus is he’s useless, but you will take my Gray Mage from my cold dead hands. 8)

Desktop Dungeons [09/18]: ★★★★★★★★★★
“More ways to die horribly in 10 minutes or less!” I don’t think I will ever be happier or prouder to 100% a game than this one. This old classic has graced my steam library almost from the start and there’s no telling how long I have spent playing it. Opening Desktop Dungeons and Adventure Capitalist first thing in the morning as I sipped my coffee and not closing them for days was my usual routine. Both of these games are so skewed in playtime I’ll sadly never know how long I played them.

But for Desktop Dungeons I expect it is actually upwards of at least 200 hours. I genuinely, absolutely adore this game. It’s a tricky one for sure. Because it looks like a dungeon crawler RPG and claims to be a roguelike. But it’s actually is an infuriatingly difficult (at times) puzzle strategy game. Only you won’t notice that part until you’ve died 500 times. The last 10 to 15 achievements are accomplished by so few owners because the late game is so amazingly hard. Oh, but so rewarding.

It’s all packaged in a cute, wry, not too serious shell but the learning curve is steep. While I won’t say I didn’t get frustrated at times over the years, I don’t feel the game is remotely unfair.

If you fail, you fail fast. And while it is stacked against you sometimes, more often than not you die because you made a mistake. Plain and simple. A lot of those times the mistakes are all in hindsight but I can’t count the number of times I thought “If I’d only done that instead I’d have won that” after a death. Losing seems more like a learning experience than a loss and that makes it very addictive. Also when you do die, you aren’t out of hours worth of progress so there’s always the feeling of incentive to play just one more time. To try that stage just once more.

Sadly, there are no more stages left to try. No more vicious dungeons or gold challenges left unconquered now. There is the random daily dungeon but at this point it’s time to hang up my sword. I understand the mechanics at such a deep level after suffering through the hardest areas that the normal daily is too easy. But I certainly can’t complain. Just another 10 star journey that like all journeys, has come to an end.

Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal- [09/23]: ★★★★★★✰✰✰✰
Pretty enjoyable little VN with an interesting premise, however it’s so minimalist in art and sound that it might not be for everyone. About ¾ of the way in I learned I cared a lot more about the characters than I thought I did. Very depressing story but interesting.

Also I completely get what the ending was trying to do to compensate for all that suffering but oh boy did it go about it the wrong way. I have to wonder what that one character was trying to accomplish with her questionable idea and wonder even more about what the hell the writers were thinking. Maybe make your MC older or don’t do that, perhaps? Wow.

Sound of Drop -fall into poison- [09/26]: ★★★★★★★✰✰✰
I quite liked playing this spooky VN about a murderous aquarium. The setting was the reason I was interested and I admit that freely but the story wasn’t bad. Some of it was a bit convoluted but not deal breaking. There were two things though, if I ever see “moreover” or a character puffing out their cheeks again in a story I think I will scream, lol. All instances of both of these things were awkwardly placed in the story and repeated almost every damn paragraph it seemed. I think the extreme overuse of the words was even more noticeable because they always stood out as clunky amidst mostly passable writing/translation efforts.

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All in all, it was a great month in both overall progress and enjoyment!