Finished it. Man that final stretch was brutal. You do get full unlimited deckbuilding in the final area, that’s where you can use all the cards from all the zones without any extra mana costs. But fuck me, do you need it. The last stretch of 5 elite fights in a row without healing before the last boss was something.

You know, I didn’t realise you were a deckbuilder enjoyer but now after we’ve talked about Death Howl I should have realised. Have I already tried to sell you on Chrono Ark? It is seriously one of the goats, I played it this year after Christmas and loved every second.

I didn’t realise it was out!? God damn it my backlog is already a behemoth. I didn’t play the demo because I didn’t want to be spoiled but I loved the reveal trailer song and from what I’ve heard everyone who played it during next fest couldn’t stop gushing about it and talking about potential GOTY. So I’m very keen to try it.

It’s amazing isn’t it? Nothing more satisfying than using the first L1 attack to launch around an incoming attack and still get a hit in with the tip of the sword on the swing. And yeah being able to mix and match between L1 and R1 is also so great. So you can do L1-L1-R1 for example to skip the jumping attack. Easily the most fun weapon in the game to use for me.

Death Howl is still a good game. I think for me at first glance it looked so amazing that I was half expecting a 9-10/10 and it’s more like a 7.5-8/10. The art is beautiful and never stops being fantastic and the gameplay is very solid. Once you accept that the emphasis is on the grid-based strategy part and solving encounters like puzzles instead of cooking up crazy creative deck combos the game starts to click much better.

The big let down for me is the story, I don’t hate the main conceit of it even though it’s a little played out, but I think it could have been delivered in a much more subtle way so that you connect the dots much later and get a much more impactful end result that way.

My playthroughs got derailed a bit by Football Manager this week, so I’m still not done with Death Howl. Will hopefully be finishing it up over this weekend, depending on how much more content there is. Not any real further notes from last week, and I’m still overall enjoying the game. The battles that are at the core of it are fun, and I am enjoying the deckbuilding even though it’s more puzzle-like than open ended. Each region has two play style archetypes and a certain set of enemies and encounters, and for each fight/zone it’s more a case of “what does the game want me to do here” rather than “what can I do with the cards I have”.

As for Elden Ring co-op, I’ll leave that to those who are more enthusiastic about the game than I am I think. I had my fun with it and got my money’s worth but I am not that interested in going back for seconds. Also social anxiety and all that, I’m not sure I’d be that comfortable anyway, or that good company for that matter.

Has to be STALKER Anomaly for me.

May I ask what terms you would prefer for these genres?

The image appeared in a children’s anti-racism booklet distributed in primary schools in the local area about the life of former footballer Paul Canoville, who was the first black player to play for Chelsea.

It shows a cartoon figure wearing a white hood and robes, which is typically associated with the white supremacist group, with the outfit also bearing Millwall’s crest.

Makes sense, I assume the club shop owns the rights to this outfit and it’s being sued for copyright infringement?

God I wish the IP didn’t belong to EA. It has so much potential, I always wanted Alice 3 to be a Soulslike personally but I know American McGee himself had some ideas already for Alice: Asylum to be the next installment. Shame EA doesn’t give two fucks about the franchise.

Not a Souls game but Alan Wake 2 has some great liminal spaces.

I love me some french symbolists. His Flower Clouds is also beautiful to me.

It also has two separate ways to make sure you don’t get stuck. I’m sure you found the Puzzle Oracles already, which is a great mechanic, and then on its webpage there are great two-stage hints for every puzzle/side quest in the game: first a smaller nudge in the right direction and then under a second spoiler tag the full explanation.This dev is so thoughtful it blows my mind.

I also like how all the game mechanics fit into the lore so naturally. The curse mechanic is one of my favourite game mechanics ever.

Ah, still so much to come! I loved that bit, you can really spend some time to perfect your build down there. The game just keeps getting cooler, doesn’t it. Whenever you think you have it figured out you discover some new surprise it throws at you.

Honestly for me, while I don’t like the UI and agree that it’s not good I could definitely get used to it. What irks me is feature removal. I miss getting more detailed stats during and after matches so much. Heatmaps, pass maps, touch maps, dribble visualisations, average positions, shot maps… All gone.

Also being unable to do much with your reserve and U18 teams. I don’t think you can even see their position in their respective leagues anymore? You used to be able to micromanage them, select specific players for specific positions (useful for retraining which I do a lot) etc.

It’s not really a point and click adventure, there are no puzzles in Pentiment and no item-based interactions or anything like that. It’s purely a visual novel.

Also I had such a hard time with Pentiment. There are parts I adored, like the art and the characters and writing (mostly), but man is it slow and boring at times. Maybe I’ve just been brainrotted by modern pace of information but the commitment to authentic portrayal of the world and times sometimes led to sitting through absolutely mind numbing conversations with uninteresting farmers. The pacing is also a bit rough, it felt like a slog at times, especially in the third act. I was very close to being unable to push through the third act.

At the same time I think the payoff was great, the journey Andreas goes through is great, and some of the moments related to his personal struggles and doubts were very impactful and moving. In the end I am glad I played it and I think it’s an objectively good piece of art, despite my gripes with it.

How are you liking Mouse PI? I haven’t bought it yet as I just bought a couple of games recently and need to mind my backlog, but it looks really good.

It’s actually unreal how good it is. It does have Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam but yeah, this should be a smash indie hit and not a hidden gem. How far in are you?

Was my GOTY last year by a mile (and yes I also played E33). Absolutely incredible game, and also a super underrated but phenomenal OST, Trigg & Gusset really killed it. Great showcase of the bass clarinet.

Physical notes are absolutely vital, I ended the game with like 50 pages of notes and hundreds of screenshots!

Football Manager 26 was free on Steam this past weekend so my current playthroughs of other games got derailed as I lost a good couple of days to it, fully feeling the addiction seeping in again. I would still recommend FM 2024 over it all things told, but I have to admit the new tactics engine in 26 allowing for different formations in and out of possession is both realistic and a lot of fun to play with.

Otherwise before and after the weekend it’s been more of Death Howl. I’m having a good time with it so far. The art is absolutely beautiful, a gorgeous minimalistic but expressive pixel art in a very distinctive muted color palette. I have some complaints here and there with the gameplay but mechanically the turn based Soulslike grid-based strategy deckbuilder genre soup is a nice mix and the combat is very challenging but doable. I’m constantly just about scraping by between bonfires. On the deckbuilding side it’s not a game that puts a premium on creativity so far, and instead it seems more constructed like a series of small puzzles. Each zone has its own set of cards and its own set of encounters and it’s up to you to find the “correct” deck and approach for each encounter.

The story has been pretty mediocre so far, which is unfortunate. It’s ostensibly framed as this Orpheus tale of a mother going into the spirit world to rescue her child from death, but it’s very obviously actually a tale of a mother’s journey towards accepting the death of her child, with each zone representing one stage of grief. Maybe it hits different if you don’t pick this up right away, but me personally I’m mostly drumming my fingers as the story unfolds, waiting for the penny to drop for the protagonist.

It’s not really been story heavy though in fairness, so the majority of playtime is spent in battles, and those are still fun.