February : Turning my backlog into pisces !

Hey there !

It’s my first time writing down anything here but February has been a great month for me in terms of backlog fighting and I thought it would be a good opportunity to start posting here (as well as practicing and, hopefully, improving my skills in English, hehe !). I actually enrolled in another “fight your backlog”-event elsewhere on the web and managed to reach the end of 7 of the 9 games that were chosen for me !

[CPC] Backlog Event :

• Blocks that Matter
  

  6 hours playtime

  13 of 32 achievements

• Owlboy
  

  7 hours playtime

  0 of 12 achievements

• Grow Home
  

  3 hours playtime

  6 of 26 achievements

• ABZÛ
  

  2 hours playtime

  5 of 12 achievements

• Stories Untold
  

  3 hours playtime

  10 of 13 achievements

• Machinarium
  

  4 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• SteamWorld Heist
  

  16 hours playtime

  19 of 47 achievements

• The Banner Saga 2
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 55 achievements

• Grim Fandango Remastered
  

  2 hours playtime

  6 of 47 achievements

Overall impressions

On the didn’t-go-so-well side, I didn’t launch The Banner Saga 2 at all because I wasn’t in a mood for a visual novel (not even for a VN with a tactical twist) but it’s not a big deal as I’ll definitively play it someday. I’m a tiny bit sad that I had to abandon Grim Fandango and kick it out of my backlog but even though I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the game it felt really sloooooow and it became somewhat painful to come and go in search of non instinctive resolutions for loony puzzles… too slow and too painful for a game I would have played for more than 10 hours if I had persisted to the end anyway !

Machinarium suffers the same P&C issues as Grim Fandango but it’s way quicker to go through it and the beautifully drawn 2D environments make up for some of those issues. I’m definitively not a big fan of P&C games but Machinarium proved me that I can still enjoy one of those from time to time.

I forced myself through Blocks that Matter which suffers from the first-game-syndrome : not a terrible game but with a lot of tiny mistakes damaging for the overall experience. It made me curious about its sequel Tetrobot & Co. which also lurks in my backlog and will hopefully have corrected some of Blocks that Matter mistakes.

Owlboy and Stories Untold were the two BIG setbacks of the event for me. The first one (Owlboy) because I had wanted to play it for so long and had so many expectations that it really felt like a hard fall when I discovered it’s only an average game and not the hit I wanted it to be ; the second one (Stories Untold) really made me have mixed feelings : I felt in love with it during the three first chapters of the game that set a great atmosphere but the fourth and last chapter ruined it for me by its lack of subtlety and the way it forced me to play through all the driving and accident phase…

Fortunately I had a better experience with ABZÛ which was extremely quiet, peaceful, relaxing and most of the time beautiful !
I really enjoyed my time on SteamWorld Heist too : it created a very nice world and some cool characters and I felt great blasting my way through pirate-robots’ spaceships ! Really a great sequel to SteamWorld Dig in a very different gameplay style and a great game. I’m not a big fan of tacticals usually but the twist of putting the camera sideways instead of on top of the action made it for me !
Last but not least, Grow Home was a amazing pick for me ! Though I had heard a lot about this game I never really build any expectations about it so it felt like a great discovery when I actually played it ! Jumping and flying from more than 2000 feet high, climbing, searching for crystals, everything felt like a perfect playground ! I strongly recommend anyone to play it.

Other games I played this month :

• JumpJet Rex
  

  3 hours playtime

  15 of 51 achievements

• Secrets of Rætikon
  

  2 hours playtime

  6 of 19 achievements

• Toren
  

  2 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• The Mooseman
  

  2 hours playtime

  9 of 15 achievements

Overall impressions

JumpJet Rex was gifted to me. It is a “plateformer” where you, a space-dino, have to trace your way through deadly spikes and more or less agressive monsters with the help of your jetpack. At the end of every level you get up to three stars (one for completed the stage and another one if you do it without dying or if you do it within the allowed time) and my goal was to finish at least every stage without dying which I did. I wouldn’t say it’s the best game I played but it’s still a nice plateformer and it catched me trying to go as fast as I could most of the time which is something I usually like when playing this kind of game.

I also got Secrets of Rætikon as a gift and I was very close to quit it after only one hour into it. In the end I’m glad I gave it another chance because it’s a really nice game once you get a better understanding of what your supposed to do (there is not really any explanation) and after you unlock a few shorcuts. The interaction with NPC, foes & the world are quite nice but the physics can be messy and I got stuck in a wall right before returning the last shard I was supposed to get… I had to watch the (very weird) ending on Youtube but I still consider the game finished !

Got Toren on barter : it had intrigued me for ages with its nice “thumbnail-art” but I didn’t approach it without a little bit of apprehension as the game got a lot of negative reviews on steam. Turns out that it’s a very clumsy game with weak gameplay and too much of blurry camera effects but those issues shouldn’t prevent you to enjoy the great tone sets by the game : it really made me think of Shadow of the Colossus and Ico at some point (well, Toren’s not as good a those, but there’s something anyway…) and the fact that it’s very short (it took me less than 2 hours to complete it) and really easy makes up for most of the problems the game have.

Finally : The Mooseman ! A 2D-walking-simulator/P&C narrating a story about myths of the region of Perm (Russia). I played it with my partner who went to study Russian in Perm for 6 months when she was in college. Once again, the gameplay isn’t really that interesting and the translation is not really good (neither in French or in English) but the art is really nice and the ambiance is great.

What’s next ?

I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish as many games in March than in February but I’ll do my best.

I already know that I want to play ENIGMA: and Treasure Adventure World, two games that I got as gifts.
I’d also like to play Samorost 3 as my participation to the monthly theme of March Lucky Number Three (“Trilogies: Play one or more titles from a trilogy.”) and I’m starting my ABC Challenge (which is really a 0ABC Challenge) starting with a number (1001 Spikes) before jumping to actual letters. I’ll post a list of games I plan to play for this challenge later this week, stay tuned ! ;)

• ENIGMA:
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 22 achievements

• Treasure Adventure World
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 27 achievements

• Samorost 3
  

  0 hours playtime

  0 of 30 achievements

• 1001 Spikes
  

  83 minutes playtime

  1 of 25 achievements

Stats

As a way to remember, I’m starting this month with 202 games on my steam account.

• 97 Beaten (48%)
• 90 never played (45%)
• 12 unfinished (6%)
• 3 won't play(1%)

That was a long post ! I hope there’s not too much gibberish and that I’ll be able to post a monthly report of my progress fighting my backlog in the future !