ex WoW addict, Path of Exile prisoner trying to fight the steam backlog Carenard’s profile

Lets see if I can finish this backlog…. before 2050.


Marching down the backlog

The Council

12.2 hours, 31 of 42 achievements

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This was an interesting one, thought it was going to be all political with religious undertones… but suddenly demons


Sucker for Love

3.4 hours, no achievements

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have you ever been so down you would sacrifice your entire reality to kiss an eldritch babe?

Estir's routes were the best.
Surprising that I didn't pick the catgirl right


Digseum

2.1 hours, 10 of 10 achievements

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a family share game, but its a nice little turn brain off and click things game.


Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

8.0 hours, 9 of 11 achievements

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a great sequel!
those who played first pretty much know what to expect, but this time we get a chapter select and alternate narrator for those who want to 100% and go back to get whatever you missed, 1 you had to get all in 1 playthrough with no ability to go back.

had a little to much fun in photo mode.


Myst IV: Revelation

13.2 hours, no achievements

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I enjoyed it… but its definitely a product of its time, think I will stay away from the rest of the older Mysts for now, the newest one though ill keep entering for… and get if it shows up cheap enough in a bundle


HIVESWAP: ACT 1

3.7 hours, 23 of 44 achievements

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I am entering this universe… thought I needed Act 2 to do friendism/pesterquest… but apparently act 2 is after all that.

this was neat


LEAVES - The Journey

2.2 hours, 16 of 16 achievements

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a point and click with no text!
was short and enjoyable


Hiveswap Friendsim

9.8 hours, no achievements

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This was really nice, the music made me tired for some reason though.

seems the homestuck webcomic(which is the epilogue)… serves out HTTP error 503's :/
I moved onto pesterquest without reading it.


Zoeti

8.9 hours, 12 of 30 achievements

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decent game overall…

I do feel I said enough in my review, I won't be playing this game again for sure.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/carenard/recommended/1434540?snr=159__402


Pesterquest

10.9 hours, no achievements

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I would try reading the homestuck webcomic before playing this… would probably enjoy it more if I did… not sure.

its done, I will avoid future homestuck universe stuff that isn't hiveswap so I don't feel required to finding the webcomic again… and ignoring it again… then feeling somewhat lost because I skipped some content that should have been done.


Catherine Classic

14.8 hours, 21 of 50 achievements

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and a weird one, took me a bit to get used to it


Sagrada

8.9 hours, 29 of 29 achievements

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nice digital version of the game, the last few boards in the "campaign" are tough since the AI actually doesn't play dumb in them…

the AI on the easy/normal ones… is incredibly dumb…. like dumber than a brand new player to the game who is new to board gaming in general levels of dumb. they would play better if you removed their ability to use favor tokens… since they completely waste them in the lower difficulty parts.


Universe For Sale

4.8 hours, 9 of 17 achievements

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this was neat… but didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would


The Room 4: Old Sins

5.0 hours, 9 of 9 achievements

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another great entry in the series, looking forward to future ones if there ever are any


Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

22.0 hours, 21 of 63 achievements

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weaker part of the franchise if you ask me, the oz stuff was neat… being able to ground slam was fun and all… but gearbox also gave enemies jetpacks that seemed to have no limit where you could only get a little boost and that is it… made tracking some of the enemies annoying… and definitely made them buggier… watching them jetpack through floors.

didn't like the gunship boss fight near the end at all, until near the end… of my fifth attempt… it never came close enough to get blasted with a shotgun or rocket launcher(my favorites for slaying bosses)… the final boss though… decided at the end it would go big… and make a giant face target for the ice lady with tons of extra crit damage… to hit its weak point(the face) with. Needless to say… the boss got absolutely melted.


Ignis Avis Venatio

11.4 hours, no achievements

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Story is… ok, not something I would recommend.
has some great CG art, backgrounds and 2D models are of varying quality.

its kind of difficult to read due to UI choices, it doesn't have a text box, or tell you who is speaking… just put a transparent background over the images and start throwing text at you.


Good Night, Peregrine

0.9 hours, no achievements

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I enjoyed this, however this is not a happy VN… your not supposed to like most of the characters in it.
am glad I picked this is up before it got delisted since the creator doesn't like it, sad I failed to grab it on sale… oh well only lost 30 cents or so of wallet funds extra.


The month of romance… and Balatro brainrot… but the Pokermon mod is just so good

Alan Wake

13.4 hours, 29 of 67 achievements

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not my type of game really… powered through it since it was a POP pick.
won't be playing anymore of the series though.


SKALD: Against the Black Priory

24.1 hours, 15 of 15 achievements

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this was fun, however the graphics started to get to me by the end


Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS

16.9 hours, 20 of 20 achievements

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While I enjoyed this… I do feel it is a little bit overrated, maybe some of it is lost in translation.

no actual happy ending either… boils down to 12 bad endings… and 2 ok endings.


BioShock Infinite

19.2 hours, 26 of 80 achievements
almost 12 years later...

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This is something I started a few days after it released(came with my GPU back then)… I hit reload checkpoint once… had no confirmation box and lost like 30 mins of progress and quit…. now almost 12 years later I finally came back to it to finish it… of the Bioshock games I still prefer 1 the most(never finished 2, only have that on 360 atm… and my 360 is not at my place)

1 > Infinite > 2 is my ranking


Your Diary +

0.3 hours, 0 of 8 achievements
terrible english translation

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apparently this is 100% machine translated… its terrible… every few text boxes was giving me mental damage…

I asked for the gifter to refund this levels of terrible, fan translation of it project was canceled to :(
I would avoid this unless you are playing it completely in Japanese/Chinese.

such a shame it has great art and music, well reviewed(likely not English speaker reviews for the majority)


ACE COMBAT™7: SKIES UNKNOWN

9.6 hours, 25 of 49 achievements

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This was one that looked really fun but I had concerns that I was going to suck so bad at it… I did suck at it… but playing on easy/casual made it enjoyable sucking at least, I think there were some things normally limited on higher difficulties(like standard missiles) that are unlimited here.

I could definitely seeing someone with a proper flight stick having an amazing time with this one.


The Council

7.1 hours, 22 of 42 achievements

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enjoyable game so far.
,,, not going to finish it this month because I let the Path of Exile event league and balatro brain rot get to me


Welcome to 2025!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

53.6 hours, 30 of 30 achievements

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Finally managed to finish this wonderful VN, I did use a guide mostly because I don't tend to play VN's for difficulty on decisions, more for the story, comedy and characters.

A wonderful random gift I received


Brotato

90.5 hours, 176 of 176 achievements

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I promise I was not addicted… no don't look at those hours or what day I started playing it… or the fact that I have done wave 100 danger 5 on endless already(prbly could have gone infinite on that run… at least close to the world record of ~2000… that busted of a build)


q.u.q.

1.5 hours, 11 of 11 achievements

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This is one of the great weird VN's… its hard to say much without spoiling it.
its fairly cheap, its short(1-2hrs max to 100%) and I would say its worth playing


Triclinium

0.5 hours, 8 of 8 achievements

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Cute and enjoyable, took me 33 minutes to 100%… without a guide, so its length is the only complaint.

pretty sure I did every choice possible to, there is a secret achievement… while trying to hunt for whatever it was I noticed the settings menu had new buttons and tried the Konami code for kicks and giggles… that was the code to unlock a secret option to get last cheevo >>


STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order™

15.7 hours, 22 of 39 achievements

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I had forgotten this was a souls like, honestly… I see what they were going for but it made one flaw with the game… you a jedi… feel like your using a wet noodle to attack with. I resolved with with a difficulty editor mod, just doubled the damage compared to normal mode to lower difficulty some(faster enemies die the less risky it is after all)… and most importantly… it felt more like I was using a light saber.


Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition

50.2 hours, 25 of 54 achievements

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This took me a bit to get used to, even managed to get myself killed in the tutorial dungeon… got to close to poison gas, went to leave and saw fireball scroll, exploded it and try to get to other side to quickly and died to fire >>

did ultimately play on baby mode


The Mermaid of Zennor

4.0 hours, 8 of 8 achievements

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I started this one on the wrong day, its dark, depressing at times, and mostly not the happiest of stories… I started this one the same day of my Cousins funeral… the completely wrong headspace to be walking into this VN's atmosphere with.

the story overall was good, not much to talk about art wise, the music did fit the atmosphere.


My Dear Prince

6.0 hours, 13 of 13 achievements

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and now we move to cute Yuri VN's

I may be getting lazy on reviews


Bard Harder!

0.9 hours, no achievements

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1 skeleton big bad and 1 human successfully flirted with
just bard things, flirt with everything with all that charisma.
great game, very short, has achievements in game but no steam achievements >>


NieR:Automata™

34 hours, 33 of 47 achievements

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So this is one I was somewhat worried I wouldn't love, as it would be my 3rd game from platinum to play, the 1st was Astral Chain, I just couldn't behind controlling both the player character and demon thing for combat, 2nd was Bayonetta, that one was frustrating at times and felt it was trying to be more showy than fun.

fortunately I loved this so I won't write off platinum games, I did almost every single quest… skipped the final race thing, 2 colosseums A and S rank battles(I didn't want to grind up some more to do S rank on them… I definitely pushed it doing the other at the level I did)… would likely need an hour of straight grinding in the desert pit where they infinitely spawn to do it comfortably. I did ultimately play on easy, some with and some without the auto chips on… dying on the tutorial boss and losing 30 minutes of progress hurt. Once you get past that and have the checkpoints death is not a serious setback anymore(as long as you save often)


Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case

6.6 hours, 46 of 46 achievements

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Decent, I found it to easy
I don't know if any cheevos were able to be missed but I got them all without a guide.


A Story About My Uncle

1.0 hours, 0 of 15 achievements
technical problems

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unfortunately unplayable

doesn't work with my controller at all, tried playing KBM but the screen just spins, I found something on community hub as a "fix" and it didn't work either :(


STASIS

3.5 hours, 27 of 27 achievements

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nice short horror(mostly blood and gore) point and click game with a solid story

did a few technical problems… but nothing that made it unplayable for me.


Rail of Möbius

10.7 hours, no achievements

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An incredibly good VN with amazing art centered around time travel.
easily going to be my favorite played VN this month

does have a few relatively minor localization issues, but nothing that will stop the understanding or enjoyment of the story(things like missing spaces, a couple times names weren't translated(EG Cecilia telling a character you can just call her , one of the unimportant side characters name seemed to be a literal translation of their Chinese name, a few times closer to the end it would show text intended for production(BG: XYZ)


The Room

2.6 hours, 5 of 5 achievements

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this was a great puzzle(box) game

I feel like I am getting lazier on these texts… are people reading this far :D


不/存在的你,和我

4.0 hours, 31 of 31 achievements

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and now the VN's are getting philosophical, this was pretty good… but weird at times(debating if I upload any SS's atm)
anyone who wants to 100% this, do the settings/main menu achievements rq before doing story… so you don't need to dig and find the save folder to delete your save… as doing the bad end will lock you out of 1 the cheevos


The Room Two

3.7 hours, 7 of 7 achievements

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This one was no longer just a puzzle box, but now puzzle box tied to a room
this is definitely a great series


Amelie

1.7 hours, 7 of 7 achievements

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Necks!
this one was short and interesting!


The Room Three

4.8 hours, 6 of 10 achievements

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and now the series is more escape room, still great though, don't have 4 through family share sadly.
there was some puzzles in the hub area that spans all of the area I definitely couldn't figure out, but its beaten
won't 100% this one… previous 2 100% was just beat the game.


Sakura Sadist

3.4 hours, 13 of 13 achievements

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Its a Sakura game… not much more needs to be said
Childhood friend is the best(aren't they always)


Ad Fundum

6.2 hours, 8 of 26 achievements

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decent mining game… the early game is pretty boring… alot of games have this problem though… but once you get some upgrades it gets better


Piczle Cross Adventure

22.3 hours, 24 of 24 achievements

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Nice and enjoyable Nonogram game.
its all making pictures… so if you get stuck with the math logic… you can try to go to art logic.

I was a rebel and saved the tutorial for after finishing the rest of the game to 100% it.


Sakura Cupid

3.0 hours, 16 of 16 achievements

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and yet another Sakura game and rooting for childhood friend.


Twilight Survivors

34.5 hours, 188 of 188 achievements

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definitely the cutest vampire survivors like game I have played, game definitely needs some more balancing… some of the skills and characters are just so much weaker than the others, ranged projectiles are by far the best(to be fair… in what vamp survivor like game are they not?)

all the characters at least were fairly unique with their unique weapons, you have the cat girl with a giant hammer going for big aoes(prbly the best melee weapon… because of its sheer aoe), a Shiba Inu ninja that is all mobility(lots of dashes), a robot that can be in mobile mode or deployed mode for even more damage(later unlocks give it a shield so its not as detrimental vs bosses/elites), can't tell if its supposed to be a living jackfruit or dorian that is about getting hit and doing reflected damage, standard warrior dude, elf archer(by far the best of the characters), a literal cat summoner(2nd best imo once you get its 2nd talent tree layer), a watermelon samurai… and a few more normal characters.

all the characters have their own talent trees, the only thing that get shared is the bonus for unlocking their ultimate talent(mostly things like +1 reroll, +1 banish, there are a few static bonuses that are more useful like some hp, attack, a revive and some levels for free right at the start(this is by far the most important for later stages)


Not going to put this one into the January post for reasons

Portal 2

14.8 hours, 25 of 51 achievements

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soo.. when I was checking achievements of others for some other reason… I noticed I was lacking a large number, pulled up an achievement guide and realized… I hadn't done most of the single player campaign… at least with achievements on my account. My cloud save also reflected that..

Not sure if I played on brothers/someone elses account, if co-op campaign was same puzzles but as 2 characters or what as I remember a good chunk. Even if it was a replay or just a first time doing single player its been long enough that it was a great experience regardless


Hope everyone had some great holidays. Knocking out a bunch of SG wins and gifts this month, a few to many wins going into the won’t play/other problems lists for my liking… but this is what happens when you start to run out of wins to pick from. Every single one is a SG win or a gift! Hopefully I didn’t miss any as I forgot to check my recently played before the monthly reset.

GRIS

6.4 hours, 17 of 17 achievements

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Lets start this month off strong with an amazing game
straight into the favorites, I did effectively 2 playthroughs as I had to go back to get the collectibles I missed via chapter select


Strings Theory

8.5 hours, no achievements

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neat little puzzle platformer


Nex Machina

3.7 hours, 13 of 39 achievements

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neat little arcade shooter that can be beaten in around an hour(on rookie… less if you fail less than me :D)… I don't want to imagine what it would take to 100% this though.


Barrow Hill: The Dark Path

5.6 hours, no achievements

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this was on overall disappointment


Kingdom Eighties

4.9 hours, 16 of 31 achievements

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haven't played the other kingdom games(yet), gameplay seemed to be what I recall from what I watched of the others… story was very whatever.


Chaos Reborn

2.5 hours, 0 of 34 achievements

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title screen had some great music, even though I wasn't going to play the the multiplayer(prbly the bigger chunk of the game)… I had hoped to be able to enjoy the single player…

my god is it slow… way to slow… so slow you can get bored as hell and quit… like I did
another sad red mark in my wins :(


Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

19.5 hours, 12 of 17 achievements

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not very good at these retro fighters… definitely could have beaten them all faster but I didn't want to do the 2 controller or save after every hit level cheese strats… I did let myself use a cheat code on one of them


Splasher

4.9 hours, 18 of 47 achievements

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effectively a precision platformer, first 2/3 of the game I really enjoyed… then the game started adding winds and timed lasers which made the game less fun to me, ended up using cheat engine to get god mode on a few levels so I could beat it.


The Blind Prophet

7.7 hours, no achievements

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rather enjoyable point and click… other than being forced into fullscreen mode(these kind of games I like to windowed… or at least borderless fullscreen), something was breaking SS's for me on this… all of the ones I took are just solid black >>


Dreamstones

1.2 hours, 0 of 25 achievements
a buggy mess

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will let my review on steam speak for itself

an Arkanoid clone with RPG elements, while at first its enjoyable… then you start noticing the collision and physics bugs, the ball just going straight through the paddle, being sent downward instead of back up, or otherwise the wrong direction. The split ability seems to almost always shoot a ball towards the bottom of the screen regardless of the balls original direction… making it a low value skill with a long cooldown.

would love to play more… but… these bugs are just killing me
I tried the area I stopped at 4 times… I failed it all 4 times due to collision detection bugs… shame as the game is otherwise enjoyable


A Story Beside

10.0 hours, 16 of 16 achievements

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a lovely story based game
those who can enjoy a slower story focused game will likely enjoy this one


F1 2020

4.7 hours, 5 of 50 achievements

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well I have determined… I absolutely suck at this game, won't surprise me if I missed something to help me win at all.
but even using the assists and setting AI to the bare minimum… I couldn't win


Bang Bang Racing

2.3 hours, 7 of 12 achievements

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and then a racing game more my style, arcade style!
other than not loving the looks of the vehicles… they feel misshapen somehow I enjoyed this one.


ELEX II

5 hours, 3 of 50 achievements
trailer feels like false advertising

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I feel like the trailer is complete false advertising… it depects lots of action… I have put 4 hours into this game now and have killed ~40 enemies total… 1 group of humans for a quest… which was more shoot explosive barrel and thats about it… and the rest is weak little rats/flies… everything else will just murder you because your way to weak… even on easy.

This game mostly wants me to go point A to B and talk to people so far… while I expected some of that in a game like this… when only 2 quests have asked me to kill things… and 1 of them was effectively kill 5 rats that are spread out in the world…. I just wanted more action :/


Deadlight

5.4 hours, 20 of 31 achievements

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this was a very old SG win, I actually have a key for the directors cut/enhanced edition/whatever it was called(to lazy to double check)… but that version isn't a win so it gets no love!

I originally marked this as won't play… but as my unplayed win list shrinks I looked over some of my won't plays and this one I was unsure why I had marked it, I overall enjoyed this one, it wasn't great but a solid 7/10 for me.


Elendia Ceus

16.3 hours, 4 of 5 achievements

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wasn't bad… but my god some of the secret room locations are just dumb, if I didn't open the steam guide to get an idea… I would have been clueless to check a mailbox for a secret room kind of dumb.

now to take a break from RPGmaker games for a bit before tackling the other one I won.


Mark of the Ninja

12.2 hours, 11 of 38 achievements

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another old win bites the dust, I guess I got distracted by WoW/POE on this one which got it left unfinished… for 9.5yrs


Miriel Saga

21.7 hours, no achievements

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For starters I won't call it a good game(5/10 or so), was longer than expected to.
The voice acting is the entire reason I entered a single GA for this… and the parts of the game that were voiced were disproportionally good compared to the rest of the game. You could definitely tell which parts had more time put into them to.


Unidentified Falling Objects

2.2 hours, 2 of 14 achievements

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an interesting arcade game, definitely not one I can sit down and finish quickly but will work on it over time


Twilight Survivors

6.0 hours, 73 of 188 achievements
slowly working on this one, but potato bro got priority

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This was a random gift from someone
its a slower pace vampire survivors clone, but we have cute characters! A big hammer wielding fox? wolf? cat? girl(can't remember what lore vs looks was), a dog ninja(yes just a dog), a cat summoner(again yes just a cat), an elven archer and more(still haven't unlocked them all). Instead of a generic meta progression tree for everyone each character has their own talent tree which when pushed to a certain point gives a bonus for all characters(+1 revive, +1 reroll, +5 starting level(and what comes with levels) are the ones I have seen)

probably would have finished it by now, but Santa brought me a potato that shoots guns and swings weapons at things


Brotato

68.4 hours, 141 of 176 achievements

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I probably watched 20+ hrs of the game since the abyssal DLC came out(the curse mechanic is the sole reason I became more interested in the game, without it… it would become to samey and easy), and I was right… I am clearly addicted(all those hours… are in the past 2 weeks… and I have multiple days where I was out and about for family/holiday stuff).

starting to play with mods as I finish up 100% achievements(which is just win with each character on each map, and a few other that you get in the first hours)


The month to eat way to much food … and have way to much gaming time…. December is going to look tiny in comparison
… can’t tell if I missed anything(stupid criminal idling for cards for xmas event)
also played some Balatro from family share

Kairo

3.7 hours, 11 of 11 achievements

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I am still unsure of what I did to solve some of these puzzles… also super weird secret ending.


Bound By Blades

0.0 hours, 0 of 15 achievements
technical problems

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not a good start of the month… refuses to accept input from my controller after the press to start screen. Played with all sorts of controller settings and same issue >>
another SG win into the technical problem folder :(


Severed Steel

5.3 hours, 12 of 57 achievements

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I had to turn this down to the lowest difficulty level, I am not skilled enough to constantly be doing the actions where enemies cant hit you and kill them.

definitely an adrenaline rush game and worthy of its overwhelmingly positive review average


Mini Ghost

3.9 hours, 10 of 24 achievements

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I don't think I am very good at this, but I managed to beat it!


Nodebuster

2.9 hours, 13 of 13 achievements

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A short and simple game… also the first game I have finished from my family share library.


Outer Wilds

15.1 hours, 14 of 31 achievements

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Man I was confused on what I was doing for the longest time here, I ultimately chose random places to explore first so I feel I found what to do and where to bring things very early since there is nothing stopping you from going anywhere except knowledge.

Mostly stress free exploration, although the time requirement on certain things can be stressful… and ofc the area that feels like a horror game.

… its really hard to say things about this game without spoiling it >>


X-Morph: Defense

11.1 hours, 14 of 40 achievements

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an SG win, was very enjoyable, I am a casual in this genre so I definitely played on easy, the final level was still fairly rough.
I enjoyed this alot.


Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

24.7 hours, 35 of 38 achievements

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while the story of this was somewhat enjoyable and is what stopped me from dropping it… the overworld portion was fairly painful.
honestly feel like this game would have done better in a VN format.


Hellpoint

17.8 hours, 21 of 42 achievements

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Slowly cleaning up the SG wins list, this one was alright, I would have been unhappy if I kickstarted it or paid full price, but as part of a bundle/freebie(SG win!) it was enjoyable.


Aegis Defenders

11.5 hours, 26 of 31 achievements

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this stupid game kept enabling controls for player 2 every time I launched it, and I would forget that it was doing that every time I started it so I had to quit to title multiple times to turn it off…
beyond that it was decent

slowly working through all these SG wins


XCOM: Chimera Squad

19.0 hours, 16 of 40 achievements

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overall I enjoyed it, although… I get the feeling turn based tactics with guns… is not my favorite. Maybe I just prefer Fire Emblem/Final Fantasy Tactics style turn based tactic games.


Legendary Mahjong

5.9 hours, 7 of 20 achievements

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decent mahjong game… with an absolutely terrible mode that you have to do to unlock all the other mahjong modes…

the slide puzzles alone are making me consider never touching this again… I may consider continuing to play traditional mode some… but at this point I might as well just play regular mahjong on my phone… I have a paid one there to so(traditional only though)


Bayonetta

15.1 hours, 16 of 50 achievements

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There are parts I loved… Parts I hated(cough chapter 14)… but had a solid time overall… I was bad enough at the game I did have to drop it down to easy mode.
took some time to get used to the game having attacks launched at me right after a cutscene for enemy spawns happened.


Journey

2.8 hours, 4 of 14 achievements

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Wonderful short game, I missed 3? of the glyph things in my Journey.
I learned this game is technically multiplayer to a degree… after I finished it and was wondering why I got an achievement steamDB categorized as multiplayer. For the rest of the game I thought it was AI assisting you through your Journey.


Sunset Overdrive

17.2 hours, 20 of 80 achievements

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Definitely a game made for a different crowd but I managed, took a while to get used to needing to be bouncing around and grinding on rails.


The LEGO® NINJAGO® Movie Video Game

7.5 hours, 21 of 50 achievements

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Enjoyable lego game… far to many cutscenes though(its been a while since I touched a lego game… I hope all of them don't have a cutscenes as often)


SYNTHETIK

39.1 hours, 18 of 27 achievements

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This is a fun roguelite, very hard to. I don't think I can clear it at high difficulty, but at the lowest possible… I did barely.

save files are unencrypted so you can edit it to cut all the grind out, I didn't play with that to much just gave myself some levels to cut some of early grind since the level unlocks were not going to just give me a win.


Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion

6.5 hours, 24 of 24 achievements

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now to watch a 20hr video explanation of what I just read
then spend hundreds of hours learning to pain minis, using my nemesis heroes minis for practice as I already have a nice set of painted ones from awaken realms… and then… go broke buying warhammer minis.


Loot Rascals

4.4 hours, 8 of 22 achievements

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Gameplay is fairly simple and easy to understand, RNG makes runs vary wildly… I have had somewhere you can lose right at the start because of how things generated…. then I checked out a seed someone posted in discussions and it was like playing a game on story mode instead of hard mode, I took it slow to ensure I won that run… but it also cut the game time for this game down quite a bit since it was an easy win.


Escape from Naraka

0.5 hours, 3 of 22 achievements

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the game itself(at least where I am) isn't to hard for me… its that this game is giving me motion sickness no matter what settings I tinker with… I just can't push myself through this one sadly.


BELOW

16.5 hours, 10 of 10 achievements

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neat little action roguelike, thank goodness there was an explore mode… because I know if I had to manage hunger/thirst… this game would be impossible lol.

can't believe I missed a climbable wall right at the start and had to look up where to go >>


Dead Estate

8.9 hours, 31 of 200 achievements

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another fun one, still working on doing some more in this

November was roguelite/roguelike heavy


Balatro

15.5 hours, 11 of 31 achievements

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this is from family share, dunno why blaeo can't see updates play stats and I have to adjust it, its not privated :/
I see myself checking into balatro addicts anonymous eventually


and its October!

DreamWorks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders

4.7 hours, 6 of 10 achievements

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There be Dargons in this game…
went in with low expectations, and it met them.
best part was riding dragon.


Numba Deluxe

4.3 hours, no achievements

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puzzle game, not much to say.


Hi-Fi RUSH

12.1 hours, 26 of 71 achievements

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Cute robo kitty!
I suck at rhythm games… never exceeded 60% on the timing metric for scoring, B ranked most levels… but my hack and slash skills got me to S ranking clear times!
I can see all the love that went into making this game


Inua

1.6 hours, 12 of 12 achievements

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short game, do wish there was more to the story


Dwarven Realms

212.4 hours, 21 of 26 achievements
I don't have an addiction... what don't look at those hours

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game recently released from early access so still has some kinks… like 5 progression achievements being unobtainable >>

very simple ARPG, grind, grind, grind, craft gear, push deeper into endless difficulties, eventually get some aspirational bosses… don't look at my hours please… I don't have a problem(and its definitely not higher than shown here)


Magic Archery

0.8 hours, 7 of 7 achievements

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super simple idle? clicker? auto battler? some amalgamation of those 3?
under 1hr to 100%, I could have finished faster than I did but I went ahead and unlocked everything in the shop before clicking finish game.


99 Waves

11.6 hours, 13 of 21 achievements
better than I thought it would be

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This game… actually exceeded my expectations
The UI is functional… but not great and what is made me go in with super low expectations, the gameplay however is pretty solid, story is super basic and hardly worth mentioning.
Game isn't exciting enough to drag me into endless mode though


Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

26.0 hours, 13 of 30 achievements

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Unfortunately I watched the anime so I am spoiled on the contents of the first 2 games to a degree, fortunately it was long enough ago I only remember bits and pieces

on the 3rd case in the 2nd game so far, slowly but surely will get through it all


and here comes September! Posting slightly early as I am starting Phoenix Wright Trilogy… and highly unlikely I finish even 1 game of it before month ends

Demos that BLAEO doesn’t see anymore: I Am Legion: Stand Survivors, this is a great twist on the survivor like genre, I did most of what you could do in the demo and am considering picking it up on release.

There is No GreenDam

0.9 hours, 7 of 7 achievements

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Short, cute art/live 2D model, to short to have an emotional impact at the end.

translation is very spotty at times


KARAKARA2

7 hours, no achievements

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more cute girls!
that ending… 3 when?


The Last Tinker: City of Colors

10.5 hours, 8 of 14 achievements

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Enjoyed this more than I thought I would… one of the rare instances of me taking much longer than hltb times to >>
did encounter some bugs… one of them forced me to look up what to do just to find out my problem was a bug.


NEKO-NIN exHeart

6.8 hours, no achievements

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cute cat girls that are ninjas serving a normal dude as their master.
and of course they fall madly in love with him instantly

they act a bit more like cats than the Nekos in Nekopara.


NEKO-NIN exHeart +PLUS Nachi

1.0 hours, no achievements

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+1 to the Neko harem?


NEKO-NIN exHeart +PLUS Saiha

0.9 hours, no achievements

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+1 not a Neko to the harem?


Time Walker: Dark World

33.8 hours, no achievements

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Nice little auto battler roguelite
game got pretty hard and took many attempts to finally beat the highest difficulty(both learning proper strats… and getting meta progression)
endless mode… turns out its best to just ditch the entire team building… and do a solo assassin/ninja that absolutely destroys everything(also makes it significantly easier to min/max the skills… and attribute book allocation).
not sure just how far into endless I can push… but I am in the 300s on the floor… and only the "second to final boss" portion(game basically repeats the same bosses you get in Hell mode in order… so) is even a threat(it took 1/3 of my Ninjas life!… the others do < 10%)


Okami HD

26.1 hours, 36 of 51 achievements

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it only took me 18 years to actually play this… sure I only bought it recently(off gray market… but $5 was… fair(sad I missed the choice this was in)… but I had wanted to play it since its original release on the… PS2
The visuals I say still hold up today(upside of hand-drawn stuff!)

some gameplay elements… don't, the celestial brush(a core mechanic of the game)… can be finicky… missed a pixel in making your circle? now the game won't do what your intending… wanted to do a quick power slash but started your line on fire/ice/water/lightning(once you have the relevant powers)… well guess what…. you didn't do that slash now…. and the worst is the fishing minigame… the 3rd one that you HAVE to do… took me close to 30 minutes to catch the fish since you have to constantly hold the opposite direction the fish is going… but it will swap directions 10 times in a second making you lose all the progress towards getting it to jump so you can slash it with your brush(which can can easily miss making all that time wasted)… and you have to hit it 3x… Arguably the worst fishing minigame I have done yet in a game.

combat was enjoyable(especially enjoyed the glaive weapons… 1-2 tapping enemies with charged hits) if a bit easy(to be fair… I have a ton of experience in this genre… so maybe its just skill), exploration is great, story is great


Four Last Things

1.2 hours, 17 of 17 achievements

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commit all the sins!
this game… was an experience to say the least
got 16/17 achievements without looking at achievements or a guide! had to do a 2nd quickie run to drink some alcohol for the 100%


Effie

5.9 hours, 15 of 26 achievements

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simple collectathon with basic combat
personally… the game was to simple for me, while not a bad game… it felt lacking… needing more depth in every department


Skully

7.3 hours, 12 of 29 achievements

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the start of this game is significantly better than the end. Actually is nice visually and voice acting!
its the platform puzzles with the golems that ruin the game for me… they are slow, tedious… and if you mess up after setting it up… have to do it all over again.


Remnant: From the Ashes

30.7 hours, 27 of 50 achievements

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overall… a disappointment to me.

the first boss… sub boss or whatever was complete and utter BS… cramped indoor area, with mobile strong melee boss and constantly spawning things that explode and gave rot debuff(from what I could tell it just occasionally made you cough stopping you from doing other things)… completely impossible for someone still learning the gameplay so I went to modding, used relaxed mode mod which gives a bunch of armor/life/resists and a little life regen(allows bosses to remain challenging but doable… more of an easy mode) just so I could actually play the game.

mechanically speaking bosses fell into two categories… absolute joke, or clearly designed for multiplayer.


Beacon Pines

5.4 hours, 11 of 11 achievements
I forgot to take screenshots

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wonderful visual novel, this was the highlight of the choice it came in for me and not the headliners, this was something I considered buying off the steam store a few times.
I loved it


Genome Guardian

1.2 hours, 6 of 100 achievements

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my first game from family sharing to launch
definitely more interesting to watch than play… at least for my first couple runs, will give it another shot someday… maybe, low priority though as I wasn't feeling it


Sakura Shrine Girls

4.9 hours, no achievements

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Nothing special about the story(as expected from a Sakura game), but cute cat girls!


Meme Mayhem

56.6 hours, 40 of 45 achievements

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Dumb meme autobattler that is highly addictive.
it is very RNG heavy, I doubt I will 100% it… mostly because the last few are locked behind so much RNG to complete


Halls of Torment

22.3 hours, 355 of 500 achievements

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this was a random gift from SG member
will likely get more time/cheevos in this month, but another nice game in this genre.
enemies move differently that most so avoiding them isn't as easy</p>

unlikely I will 100% but I do intent to unlock a bit more than I currently have.

</div>

and its August! Some random new indie game on this list… is making it shorter than it could have been… can you tell which?
working on Natlan in Genshin… so at best I will finish one more game this month

Renegade Ops

3.7 hours, 2 of 16 achievements

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If this is your kind of genre you will love this game, also you can play as Gordon Freeman from HFL2
fitting that I play this right after the HL2 month.
with this I am down to 1 2014 and older win that isn't multiplayer left to beat... and that one is an unknown if I will


Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island

0.5 hours, 6 of 6 achievements

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short and simple game


Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard

1.0 hours, 6 of 6 achievements

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took what they learned making the first one and expanded on it… I started to have lag for some reason near the end(prbly a memory leak or something). Also short and simple


A Short Hike

2.0 hours, 5 of 12 achievements

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short, chill and enjoyable game, I spent a fair amount of time just roaming with no goal in mind even. Has quite a number of mini games I didn't try, wasn't excited for them personally.

fortunately I was playing near the time… of a very time specific achievement so no playing with system time needed!.


Path of Giants

3.4 hours, 17 of 17 achievements

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wonderful little puzzle adventure game, honestly… wish it was a little longer
a few achievements can be missed but can easily go back to do them after your done with level select, I managed to get it all by chance on my playthrough.


Fashion Police Squad

4.3 hours, 15 of 25 achievements

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interesting spin on this genre, started to get rough on the last levels… I ended one of them with 1 health remaining… on the easiest difficulty(I suck at these)


Rebel Cops

18.2 hours, 27 of 33 achievements

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this game was hard… imagine that I was playing on hard >>
but I managed to do it!
I would consider 100%ing it… but the Three Musketeers achievement… sounds like a pain even on easy


Dungeon Exiles

87.4 hours, 46 of 46 achievements

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So this is a recent release… I saw a clip on YT it looked fun, pulled it up on steam saw it had a demo and tried the demo… immediately loved it so bought it… at full price
This is an auto battle roguelike, it set it hooks into my ADHD and did not let go until I had completed it. Is it really backlog if it was in my library for 2 minutes before being played?


Summer Pockets

39.9 hours, 15 of 15 achievements

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A wonderful, long VN, the fifth route(unlocked after the first 4 heroines) is where Key… did their thing and punches you in the gut and makes you cry yourself to sleep.

fortunately the true end unlocked immediately after has a happier end. All heroine routes are great, Shirohas is the best, the start of Tsumugis…. lets leave it at the word boobies was in far to many lines because of other girl on her route.

table tennis mini game was fun, I think I would enjoy it more on mobile because of how it played mechanically… didn't personally love the Islamon stuff.

oh... Zelrune go watch Spice and Wolf already</p>


Spirit of the North

7.9 hours, 18 of 24 achievements

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overall I enjoyed it… but found a few things frustrating.

terrain mapping… is done in a way to force you to only go on specific paths… I once got ontop of rocks the devs didnt want me on… was like a waterfall and it forced me… and lower importance terrains like some rocks in the water… will consider you in the water before your foxes models front paws are off of it… disallowing jumping. Game also made many of the shamans staffs no longer be allowed to be picked up if you left the section it was meant to be used in… and if there was a loading zone it was just stolen from you… I wanted to play the whole game carrying a single shaman staff… there is no real good development reason for this.

also some times using the mid air dash… would go in a direction I was not moving


Adolescent Santa Claus

0.3 hours, no achievements

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short with cute art….
story though is weird as hell


Gal*Gun: Double Peace

3.7 hours, 12 of 39 achievements
another route done!

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This time I did Shinobus route, got true ending on expert! why is this game so much fun.


July 2024 part 2… The Half-Life 2 part … because I didn’t want a mile long list, part 1 posted July… 12th
July ends for my on the 26th… one little monster known as Path of Exile is getting another league… and I am far to addicted to not be sitting in the queue to play.

The Binding of Isaac

7.5 hours, 27 of 99 achievements

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I have never really vibed with this games aesthetics, giving myself a few runs to get used to the controls and it became easy, almost every single enemys pattern was easily read(which isn't a bad thing… if I tried hard mode most likely)

the fight against Mom and her heart were fairly interesting, same with the demon thing in the area after moms heart(although it was to easy… but maybe I had great luck that run as I was melting things)… the rest of the bosses were pretty boring to me.


Little Inferno

2.6 hours, 17 of 22 achievements

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honestly this game would be far far more enjoyable… if it just reduced the timers on things
multiple times I was just waiting… for something to restock so I could get it for a combo, or didn't have enough stamps so just waiting for it to be delivered.
I failed to hold onto something required for an achievement… and did what many people did in this game… burned it.


AR-K

3.9 hours, 8 of 12 achievements

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This is a fairly mediocre point and click game, I recommend not playing it.
I only did so because it was a SG win >>
next SG win… Half-Life 2, expecting a much better time with that one.


Half-Life 2

12.5 hours, 21 of 33 achievements

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I am mad at myself for putting this off… for what is this… 11.25 years after winning it.

Had a great time for the most part, I did get lost a few times and had to reference a walkthrough, but that is the magic of older games not slapping yellow paint and arrows telling you where to go. The snipers and turrets that pop out of the ground are by far my least favorite enemies.


Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

0.4 hours, no achievements

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this is just a short little tech demo… featuring HDR and some dev commentary on a few things.
since I finally beat the main game I allowed myself to play through this so another SG win on BLAEO is marked as beaten!


ATRI -My Dear Moments-

14.8 hours, no achievements

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I intended to finish this one before the anime started, but I was slow and 2 episodes aired before I finished.
this is a wonderful and emotional VN… I swear I didn't cry over yet another anime robot.


Dust: An Elysian Tail

13.9 hours, 19 of 30 achievements

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I originally started this… in late 2014, I have no idea why I stopped… I assume either World of Warcraft or Path of Exile… both are/were addictions.

great game… only thing I disliked are the teleporting dudes who summon tons of zombie things(occasionally ones that explode and set me on fire!)… you have to use fidgets(the little fairy fox thing) attacks and your special to hurt them… when I encountered them I had invested nothing into it… so each hit was doing about 4 damage… where my attacks were easily doing 50x that.

one more ancient backlog done, and it was a good one!


Half-Life 2: Episode One

3 hours, 5 of 13 achievements

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more half life!
pros: more of a great game, can beat the game letting your friends do all the work and never fire a bullet
cons: flashlight levels, my internet went out while playing so proper time played/achievement tracking is wrong >>
Onto Episode 2!


inbento

2.3 hours, 15 of 15 achievements

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short and enjoyable puzzle game. a few levels stumped me for a bit, but most I was able to figure out fairly fast.
has a little story with cat pictures between works.
only needed a guide to find the hidden level(faster than just looking for it)


Half-Life 2: Episode Two

5.3 hours, 13 of 23 achievements

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and this wraps up the Half-Life 2 games… now I just need to play the first one… well more like Black Mesa(some day) so I can enjoy a more modern game.
I was getting ready to go find a Gorden get to the 'choppa meme right at the end, but things happened and credits rolled before hand.


Enter the Gungeon

21.0 hours, 38 of 54 achievements

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This game is incredibly difficult, fortunately you can mod it and Mod the Gungeon includes console commands, so I have been giving myself a nice little handicap…. of a chunk of armor so I have been having a blast actually clearing it instead of getting stuck in the 2-4th chambers(I remember why I stopped playing in on the switch now… I wasn't progressing(skill issue))

this will eventually get 100%'d… maybe, will at least play enough to get more of the achievements


oh… and for Zelrune… yes I have started summer pockets, but all this theorycrafting for Path of Exile is distracting me… once league launch weekend is done I will be able to focus more