Dear Diary,
Whoa. We’re halfway there! Whoa-oh! Livin’ on a Prayer.
Less than a month into the New Year and I’ve already reached the halfway point of my goal of reaching a 70% average completion rate by playing games I had not that many achievements in.
However, I’m expecting diminishing returns, as well as a decrease in focus. In an effort to increase my percentage by not introducing new games, I’ve been neglecting a few of my Steam Gifts wins that I’ve been meaning to play, so that’s going to have to change. My score will probably take a few hits from starting new games, but hopefully I’ll still be able to reach 70% by the end of this year.
Normally I’d do an entry and focus it on a single game, but I’ve been jumping around so many different games that it’s impossible to just talk about a single game.
Without further ado, here are the games that I’ve tackled so far:
Before: 0/104 (0%) Current: 68/104 (65%)
Most of my time spent has been on this game. Love it a lot, but for the most part it’s mindless, repetitive killing. Fitting for me, because I like mindless and repetitive, but it’s not to everyone’s tastes. I’ve always been a fan of the Epic Battle Fantasy writing, it’s nonsensical and they make a lot of references. However, some of the battles can easily take up half an hour if you’re stubborn like me and play on the hardest difficulty. For normal people, it’s best to play this game in doses, because if you try to focus on just this game you’re going to go nuts. Achievements seem more involved than Epic Battle Fantasy 3 though, there are a handful of pretty tough achievements. In case you already didn’t know, Epic Battle Fantasy 3 is free on Steam!
Before: 0/31 (0%) Current: 3/31 (10%)
Oops. Shouldn’t have started this one. I’m not very far into the story so I can’t really say much, other than it’s really confusing and I have no idea what is going on. The battle system feels like its predecessor, except that they added quick time events in the middle of some battles, so nothing too new and interesting. My silly perfectionism is getting in the way too. I’m only at the third boss and I’m stuck because I won’t take a battle rating that’s below 5 stars. Playing as Serah is pretty sweet though. She’s awesome.
Before: 1/64 (2%) Current: 4/64 (6%)
Boy, this game is really hard. I’m a big fan of platformers, but the controls and movement are very difficult to master. The puzzles are extremely cryptic and hurt my noggin, but overall I’d say it’s pretty fun. Achievements are super hard to get though… 10 hours in and I’ve only managed to get only 3 more of the achievements. If you’re a masochist, then I’d recommend this game. Otherwise, it’s not for most people.
Before 2/33 (1%) Current: 6/33 (18%)
A gift from our favorite addict, Student123. This game makes me feel really stupid. Or at least, it used to. I had no idea how people could sit through and get all the letter achievements for their profiles because this game make me sit there and derp over a lot of the puzzles. And then something magical happened. The game somehow just clicked with me and I came up with a pretty solid strategy that let me breeze through a lot of the levels. Only managed to get 4 achievements though. Pretty fun game if you like puzzles.
1/60 (2%) Current: 8/60 (13%)
Why this game’s name is in all caps is beyond me. I’m really bad at bullet hells. Like, really really bad. Unfortunately, the one and only achievement I had in this game was before I knew about card idling software, so I launched every game manually. And this was one of those dick games that gives you an achievement for launching the game. Hate developers that do that. :( Anyways, about the game. They try to make it 3D without it actually being 3D. It does add some depth to the game, but it also makes it a ton more confusing. I’m not even sure what’s going on over half the time. Then I played the tutorial and things started making a little bit more sense. Guess I should have started with that, heh. The UI is incredibly confusing and really hard to look at because it’s so bright, and their point system is even more confusing. I don’t think I’ll ever figure out this game. Not a bad game, but I wouldn’t recommend it because of how confusing it is.
1/6 (17%) Current: 6/6 (100%)
This game also made me feel really stupid. I got stuck on level 21 for like half an hour. I had no idea how to solve it. Then, similar to LYNE, this game just suddenly decided to click. Managed to get the rest of the achievements without too much of a struggle. The game is pretty good for a puzzle game and it’s not too hard to 100%, so I’d recommend it. This game suffers from extreme memory leaks though, because the game performance gets terrible over time.
Before: 14/27 (52%) Current: 15/27 (56%)
I haven’t actually played this with anyone yet. It seems very conceptually interesting, but it seems like it would be very hard to get a group of people to learn enough of the mechanics to play a game. I could be wrong though. Didn’t do much for this one, I just flipped the table 100 times for the achievement.
Before: 9/17 (53%) Current: 14/17 (82%)
Not sure how to describe this game, other than it’s a pacifist bullet hell. You can’t attack, but you have to dodge various objects that fly at you. There are 13 different levels, each with its own achievement for not getting hit. Not too hard, except for that Rave level. Totally made me rage quit. Not too interesting of a game though, so I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re after some fairly easy achievements.
Before: 47/58 (81%) Current: 48/58 (83%)
Apparently, I just gave up before getting this achievement, because all I had to do was buy one thing from the store to unlock the spend 50,000 achievement. I tried to continue Hell and Hell difficulty for the Virgil’s Downfall DLC, but I got stuck at the last fight. I can’t seem to beat it without getting hit four times. Left this game alone for now, but someday!
Before: 1/20 (5%) Current: 12/20 (60%)
This post has been censored.
Before 1/22 (5%) Current: 117/22 (32%)
Do not play this game. This game wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for one major game-breaking issue. Achievements just up and disappear. I’m not even sure how this happened, but if you start a new challenge or a new career, the game decides it wants to tell Steam that you never got those achievements. Even worse, the game itself remembers that you’ve gotten those achievements before, so there’s no way to reclaim those achievements other than messing with the game saves. So far, I’ve had to delete the save files twice - once for starting a new career and another for starting a challenge. The mechanics are not very well thought out either, so once you figure out the game it becomes really repetitive. The only reason I’m continuing to play this game is because I’m pretty sure I can get 21/22 achievements if I don’t accidentally start a career or challenge again. Oh, yeah. And I’m also really stubborn.
Before 20/22 (91%) Current: 22/22 (100%)
Wow, I did not expect this game to be so good. It’s really easy to get the first 20 achievements, but then you’re left with 2 speed run achievements. The first was to complete the first part in less than 12 minutes, and the second to complete the other part in less than 20. The last time I played this game was probably over a year ago, so I played through both parts normally to remember how to beat it. The first part took me 40 minutes, and the second part took me over an hour. I eventually had to use a guide for the first part, because my path wasn’t optimized so I ended up getting 12:30 consistently. The second part was pretty straightforward though, so I’m pretty proud that I managed to figure that out on my own. Took me all weekend to get these two achievements, but doing something over and over again and expecting better results is what I do best. I highly recommend this game. The satire is super amusing and the game itself isn’t too bad. Don’t go for those speed run achievements though. They’ll drive you nuts.
Whew, that took a lot longer than I thought. Until next time!
Yours Truly,
Tumalu
Good job with the speedrun achievements for DLC Quest. They are not that hard but annoying so that I never did them. But in a far away future I will probably do them. I just have trouble to remember the pathing and all the secret coins stashes as everything looks so similar -_-
And good to see someone playing La-Mulana. That game has the best map and puzzle design I have ever seen in a game and one of the few games which really deserves the term Metroidvania. Also had never much problems with the controls. As they are slightly restricted it makes the game easier since you have to be able to do every jump and dodge every attack within those limitations. It is one of those games I will never complete but I might return to it one day to either just replay it or get at least some “easier” achievements I left there.
Yup, they weren’t too hard but they did take me a reaaaaally long time (Steam says 12.8 hours) because I had to keep restarting my run. I had to look up a guide for the first part because my path was wrong. Good thing I did though, there’s a ton of small things that the guide showed me that cut a few seconds here and there. Other than that getting the achievement isn’t too bad if you know exactly where you’re going.
The second achievement isn’t too bad either, but it took me a long time because I insisted on finding the correct path on my own. Had a lot of 20 minute+ a few second runs because the final boss’s RNG wouldn’t cooperate. :(
I actually recorded both of those runs, so if you’re interested or maybe it will serve as a little added motivation, do let me know and I’ll upload those post haste. Otherwise, they’ll just sit in my hard drive collecting dust because I keep forgetting to upload things.
La-Mulana has been pretty fun so far, but I don’t really understand a lot of the puzzles. For the most part, I’m just running around in circles trying to figure out where I need to go. I’ll probably need to look up a guide for when I get completely lost, but for now I’ve also insisted on figuring it out for myself. Kind of reminds me of FEZ though, because the puzzles are too advanced for my brain. I had to look up a complete walkthrough for FEZ, unfortuantely.
Guess I just got spoiled by a lot of modern games. I keep trying to jump at a ladder and press up and expect the guy to start climbing, but it doesn’t work that way in La-Mulana. I also keep forgetting that you can only control where you jump if you jump straight up. You can’t change your trajectory if you run and jump, and you also can’t change your trajectory until you reach the highest position of the jump. Just a few things I haven’t really gotten used to yet.
The achievements seem really hard though! I looked through a bunch of them and none of them really look “easy” at all. @_@ Not sure how much more I can go on for without having to look at a guide.
Yea, I just need to take the time. The game is not bad but it is rather bland and I still have so many other games to take care of ^^ Although those two missing achievements are annoying. Have to look up some videos. I won’t do it alone. Maybe reading how to do that skip trick to make it easier.
As for La-Mulana: The best you can do (and what I have not done) is to note down every text by hand and just cross those you can somehow relate to stuff you have done. But yea I guess you will need to relate to a guide at one point. I think I got around 66 - 75 % of the game done by myself before I resorted to a guide. And even then I thought I could have figured it out if I just had paid more attention. Although the end game can be rather obscure. And if you want to go the optional hell temple … yea, you won’t find that one alone. And you should decide which achievements you do rather early. At least some of them. I only made one playthrough but did hard mode and beating all bosses with primary weapons only directly which is … hard.
For FEZ I just stopped playing -_- I have 140 % I think. As far as I can judge there are maybe two or three things I haven’t figured out which can be done by normal means and then I have only the puzzles left where I need to decode the fictional in-game language (which apparently took a whole community to bruteforce).
I think I’m going to have to put my foot down for La-Mulana. I feel like I’ve been going around in circles and only making a tiny bit of progress in each section. The main problem (for me at least) is that writing down everything doesn’t actually help me at all. The cryptic language, which probably one of the main features of this game, is what I struggle with the most. I’m reading all the tablets and trying to understand them, but honestly, none of them make sense. The words just don’t seem to process for me. The puzzles that I have solved so far I’m not even quite sure I understand how I solved them, so it’s been pure dumb luck for the most part.
I think that’s a huuuuge part of the game which I can’t find myself to enjoy very well. The difficult mechanics are actually the least of my worries, but I can only bang my head against the wall so much. I think I’ll just straight up use a guide for this game. Sorry to disappoint. :)
Actually, the first time I loaded up La-Mulana, it really reminded me of Spelunky. Except, all the text threw me off. Spelunky had so many hidden secrets too, and I wouldn’t have known any of that stuff if I hadn’t looked it up on Youtube. Learning all the secrets definitely made my experience a lot more enjoyable. I’m not very good at figuring stuff out for myself, you see. :)
Yeah I had to just give up and use the guide for FEZ. That game was so tricky. I really loved the gameplay, but if I have to spend three hours running around in circles I’m going to have a bad time. I think I managed to “beat” it by myself, but then I had to use the guide for the rest of the achievements. Solving things yourself is nice and all, but sometimes it’s nicer to have it handed to you on a silver platter.
It is understandable. For most games I use a guide. I just always try to solve as much as possible alone first. And in cases of some puzzle games I get so stubborn that I have refused to look up the answers til today (see missing achievements for FEZ, Toki Tori or RUSH).
Well, if running around without a clues is nothing for you then yes La-Mulana is not for you. I also spent hours randomly whipping stuff. Funnily enough the running around was the reason I didn’t find the first boss for a long time since I always skipped fighting those extra strong skeletons in the first area. But you need to destroy them once to prove your strength ^^
Well, still waiting for La-Mulana 2. May I will play that early so that I don’t even have a guide to rely on
And congrats for the progress!!
Merci EvilSheepie! Hopefully I get to Broken Age soon so you can recommend me more games that are within my impatience threshold :)
No problem :) BTW I sent you a friend invite on steam so I can spy what you’re playing on my activity feed ;)
The more the merrier :)
Oops. Forgot to mention. Access to the Tumalu Friends With Benefits program also grants exclusive access to the following!
- The ability to view my millions of screenshots.
- The ability to view my Steam Stream whenever you so desire and watch me derp around.
- The ability to bug me to play a game with you.
- The ability to stalk my activity feed. (Which was probably what you were after).
- The ability to chat with me. (!!!) </sarcasm>
I was also in for the screenshots, but I’ll take the other perks as well :p
Wow!!
See - I have just as short of an attention span as you do. I hop around so much. I guess that’s why my percentage is lower than it should be. ;-;
1/286 achievements in Civilization V. Whoops.
I’m dreading playing through FF13-2 considering I barely withstood FF13 itself. Time travel angle has me intrigued, though.
Yeah FF13 was preeeeetty grindy towards the end. I’m surprised I managed to get the 100% for that one. Don’t know how 13-2 will go but so far it feels the same as FF13. I haven’t gotten very far into the time travel angle, so if I ever 5 star the third boss and continue on, I’ll be sure to let you know! (Assuming I don’t forget about this post).