Progress report: September ‘22 (a.k.a. Winding Down Now…)

September’s… gone, huh…! Contrary to expectations, I spent a good chunk of the month still playing stuff through Game Pass (my friend gifted me another month’s worth of a subscription)… meaning that my PS backlog is still full of games I got for my birthday… but alas, there’ll be time for that eventually!

Here’s what I found time for this month:

• 100 hidden snails
  

  0.2 hours playtime

  100 of 100 achievements

  

• Ben 10: Power Trip
  

  20.9 hours playtime

  28 of 28 achievements

  GAME
  PASS

• Life is Strange: True Colors
  

  12.1 hours playtime

  40 of 40 achievements

  GAME
  PASS

• Lost Words: Beyond the Page
  

  2.2 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

  GAME
  PASS

• Mini Words: Polyglot
  

  3.6 hours playtime

  16 of 16 achievements

  

• Monkey GO Happy
  

  1.7 hours playtime

  no achievements

  

• PARADISE CLEANING -Me and my Doctor's life in the hospital-
  

  0.3 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

  

• Sapling
  

  0.0 hours playtime

  no achievements

  

• Slime Rancher
  

  38.1 hours playtime

  57 of 57 achievements

  GAME
  PASS

• State of Mind
  

  12.2 hours playtime

  34 of 34 achievements

  

• Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master!
  

  88.5 hours playtime

  89 of 89 achievements

  GAME
  PASS

• Tell Me Why
  

  12.1 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

  GAME
  PASS

• Tina & Rook! Cookie Quest!
  

  0.5 hours playtime

  3 of 3 achievements

  

• Watch Me Jump
  

  1.5 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

  

100 hidden snails - Yep, at this point I’ve got it down bad for these.

Ben 10: Power Trip - Noticed this one was another Outright Games title, so I jumped on it as well. It’s been a good while since I watched Ben 10, so I’m out of the loop, big time. The premise of this game is that Ben, Gwen, Max (and Kevin, if you’re playing in co-op mode) go on holidays to some town with a vaguely German-sounding name… and it just so happens that Hex is there too, oh boy! Now you’re gonna have to explore three different locations in search of the aliens you lost to later face off against enemies, help civilians and collect coins, upgrades, golden monkeys and… sausages? Yeah, that part’s just weird. As a fan of what I would assume to have been the original series, I was disappointed to see so few aliens being utilized; Diamondhead, really?! Grey Matter was right there! To add insult to injury, once again, some of the stuff in this game is straight up broken. The only reason I somehow clocked in a whopping 20 hours (?!) is because just when everything seemed fine with the download version, I realized I need to try and play in the cloud, because some side quest stuff just wasn’t showing up at all (and by that point I had already wasted a bunch of time running around looking for it). I wouldn’t mind replaying it one day, as long as I could be promised that I won’t be forced to waste so much time on accomplishing nothing again.

Life is Strange: True Colors - Binged the hell out of this one, since my Game Pass trial was about to run out… it was, uh… okay? The “superpower” utilized in this one is very hit-or-miss, it’s nowhere near as instantly enticing as the very first game. I was genuinely relieved that I could choose a male love interest this time around, even if in the end it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. While this isn’t related to the first game or Before the Storm in any way, I was still wary of the pairing Alex up with Steph, lest it end up messy… and fairly surprised that the global stats were 2:1 between Steph and Ryan. Oh well.

Lost Words: Beyond the Page - A light puzzle-platformer that plays out between a girl’s diary and the story she begins creating as practice for becoming a full-fledged writer. Between chapters you gain (and lose, depending on the situations) new verbs, such as “rise” or “break”, that will help you progress further. It’s a story of how fast one’s life can flip upside down, but also how important it is to get up and fight through it. As a cherry on top, everything is narrated/voice-acted with strong emotion.

Mini Words: Polyglot - I admit, I blasted through this one only with French on, as that’s the one language with a complete guide available. The gameplay’s the same as with all the other games in this series, though I do think having it be words in different languages spices it up for players who don’t know them.

Monkey GO Happy - A collection of the first five games in the long-running series, Monkey GO Happy’s concept is simple: interact with the environment by clicking and dragging things to make a monkey (or multiple, depending on the game; though in this collection, you can only play with one at a time) happy. You’re going to be doing all kinds of stuff, from simple and dumb things like making a balloon deflate in the air or winning a monkey plush at the arcade to more surreal things, such as protecting a monkey cloning lab on Mars. Stumbling upon this on Steam hit me with nostalgia, and it restores my faith in humanity to know that the original creator is available on Patreon to this day, still creating new levels.

Paradise Cleaning: Me and my Doctor’s Life in the Hospital - Woof! The first Paradise Cleaning game was released in 2018, so this has been a long time coming! It’s pretty much the same game as the first one (fun fact, I checked my post history and it seems I straight up forgot to write about it); you’re presented with an image covered up by a few kinds of cute critters, which you need to clean up with relevant tools and uncover the image. This may have only lasted 20 minutes, but it uses CGs from the company’s very own VN, set to release on Steam in the coming months. A genius marketing strategy, if you ask me.

Sapling - It’s… kiiind of a walking sim? People really are singing praises for this one, but at its core, it’s not much. Terms like “first spoken-word video game” (as it’s actually described on its store page) work to make this game seem like something out of this world, but in reality, it’s just a short story that could be read as heartwarming and bittersweet, depending on who you are.

Slime Rancher - Since the sequel was just around the corner, this summer seemed like the best time for a replay (I first played through the game on PS4). If you’ve somehow managed to completely miss this one, you play as Beatrix LeBeau, who moved from Earth to the Far, Far Range to take over a ranch. When exploring the Far, Far Range, you’ll encounter a bunch of colorful slimes, each with different quirks, such as Rad Slimes that can (and will) irradiate you, if you stand too close to them for too long or Dervish Slimes that enjoy whirling up a storm and picking up everything that’s been laying loose along with it. In a way, it’s a miracle game, having come from a studio that hasn’t released anything prior to it and ending up as sort of a sleeper hit; for me, as a calm and cozy game, it hit the spot just right and I’m excited to dive into the sequel soon.

State of Mind - This… is supposed to be a story about transhumanism… I think. In 2048, in a futuristic vision of Berlin, you control Richard, a middle-aged journalist looking for his wife and son, who seem to have mysteriously disappeared. He’s also hot-headed, a cheater, ragingly anti-tech and probably the worst protagonist I’ve ever had the displeasure of controlling. His characterization is all over the place: he acts like he’s desperate to find his family, especially his son, even though a certain part of the story reveals he’s confused about whether or not the kid is really his. He sees a memory of a stranger having visited his apartment, doing nothing in particular; automatically assumes he’s his wife’s lover and swears to murder him, even though he actually cheated on his wife in the past. Then there’s another thing, which is very much in line with his character, but still bothered me immensely: his wife bought an android, Simon and left him home. Through the whole game, Simon is nothing but a sweetheart, actively trying to help Richard with his search, but Richard insists on acting like an asshole in return. At one point, he even says that he could destroy Simon with an axe, an action he claims would be “all too human”… excuse me, who wrote this shit? Ah, but there’s also a second part of the story that plays out in an alternate, virtual world… honestly, I played through this game twice and I still don’t fully understand it. There’s a major problem with the storytelling here: you either go two hours learning next to nothing, or fifteen minutes in a dialogue-heavy scene, where some character infodumps on you, and even then it feels like the plot is happening next to you, not at you. Remember when you were little and your parents or some older kids would talk about stuff that you assumed was probably cool, but they wouldn’t say a thing when you asked about it? That’s what playing this game feels like; things are not explicitly named or described well enough, which leads to further confusion. Add to that the weirdly disproportionate amount of puzzling, a run cycle that makes every character look like they just remembered they have legs and the lack of ability to skip through cutscenes (minor detail, but useful for replay purposes) and you’ve got yourself a real mess of a game. At least… the polygon art style stands out, I guess? While not a writer myself, I do imagine cyberpunk to be one of the harder genres to write in, but I still can’t believe it could be fucked up that badly. Truly a blemish on the otherwise good (so far, from my perspective) Daedalic adventure catalog.

Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master! (i can’t figure out how to make the image look good, send help) - Here it is; the one, the only, the legend: Taiko no Tatsujin. It’s the game that got me to jump on my first Game Pass trial, and now I’m proud to say that I’ve finally unlocked all of its achievements. It’s easy to pick up, but tough to master; it’s what I like to call “a perfectionist’s rhythm game”. The franchise’s always three steps ahead; I would have loved to call this release somewhat of a “definitive edition”, since PC is easily the most accessible, but they’re busy with putting out new titles on Switch as we speak. Luckily enough for players of all skill levels, the achievement list for this version is largely geared towards buying cosmetics, but the amount of money you need to accrue is no joke (spoiler alert: there’s also an achievement for just having almost 90k units saved up at once). The one thing that might somewhat relieve the pain of replaying one and the same list of songs over and over again is the online multiplayer function, which is, ah… broken, at times. It’d be hard to count the amount of times I got disconnected from a match (which automatically counts as a loss) due to a supposed loss of internet connection (emphasis on supposed), which meant my opponent was left playing with the ghost of what was supposed to be me. I can imagine it happened to a good deal of other players as well, but then again, with the ranking system utilized in the game, there also seem to be some low-level players who will outright throw matches just to lose their rank; easy money, but also somewhat annoying. This is the second Taiko game that I’ve completed (the first one being V Version for PSVita); I can’t say I’m starved for another one quite yet, but I’m curious to see where will life lead me next in regards to rhythm games.

Tell Me Why - A year’s passed since my first playthrough, so I figured I might as well replay this one! Don’t really have anything else to add to my original review, except… did I really call it a walking simulator? LOL

Tina & Rook! Cookie Quest! - A short point-and-click about a couple of kids who just want to munch on some cookies after playing games together. It’s an adventure reminiscent of things you might have gotten up to as a kid, when the house was empty and every other idea seemed boring (within reason, of course). If you’re a fan of anime or Japanese games, you’ll quickly realize the kids fit right within typical character archetypes - Tina is lively, bouncy and comically morbid, while Rook is more quiet, calm and works to balance out her wit. The pixel art design, with some simple music in the background (which the dev claims to have made despite having no knowledge of music production, which is just sweet) is greatly reminiscent of the point-and-click games I used to play back when I was a kid, which is also a big plus. The only downside is some of the English being rough, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t prevent further progression. The dev is supposedly still working on another, bigger game featuring the same characters, so I’m excited to be on the lookout for that.

Watch Me Jump - Adapted from a play of the same name, Watch Me Jump follows Audra Bee Mills, a star women’s basketball player on her way to becoming the highest paid female player in the business. However, on the night before playoffs, the memory of a certain happening resurfaces, threatening Audra’s career. I know next to nothing about basketball, so I couldn’t say how well that worked in the story (though it did seem like the author knew what he was talking about). The LGBT+ aspect of the story… uh, minimal is the word I’d use here. The art screams “beginner”, although it does have a charm to it that I appreciate; additionally, the writing fully makes up for it. While you can hardly control the plot, I still liked it enough to be interested in the original play.

See you next month! :)