Saint Rubenio

All right. Ah. Well, ain't that great. Fucking beautiful. My favorite kind of character. This is fine. The generic anime girl? Meh. I picked Hugo in the demo because he was a spellcaster.

Well, that was the demo. I didn't beat the boss, but eh, it's just a demo, who cares. So Ys Origin is like, the first game? Ends on a cliffhanger or anything like that? Great, there's gonna be a Joshua type that everyone praises for no good reason, isn't there. Ahh, well... Right. I can only hope that THIS game doesn't become unplayable if I change too many graphic settings.

Crosscode demo: Introduction to the story, the setting, the characters and some extremely basic gameplay tutorials. Ys Origin demo: One screen of tutorials and then I'm dropped in a random volcano to kill people. Also, you can tell the same people who made Trails are behind this because the resolution settings are garbage. As in, there are none. I get to play the game in 600x400.

Oh God. I just found a FE hack that incorporates plot decisions. So not only can I lose my units because I'm shit at tactics, I can also destroy the world with my horrendous decision making. I love it. I'm playing that after I finish the one I'm playing now. I think I'm four maps from the end... which is good, because this is the second map that feels like a lategame FE6 map and it's really testing my patience. That's not a bad idea. I think I will.

Balls are introduced in the demo, actually. The demo covers the ominous intro and the tutorial at the ship, all the way to the one boss that's like, a mechanical spider with a container on top. As for the Switch version... Well, frankly, I couldn't care less. I'm a PC guy, through and through.

Well, I just played the Crosscode demo. I'll admit the story lost me a bit when it introduced the "anime MMORPG" set up, and the demo showed absolutely nothing of the puzzle part of the game that everyone is always talking about, but the basic gameplay seems fun enough. Nothing amazing, but fun enough. For just 18 bucks, I might pick up the complete edition.

Holy shit. Are you all right? Certainly is. I mean, 14 bucks and 20 bucks isn't much of a big difference. Sale ends today at 7 PM. I'll consider it. Were they taken away by the tornado? I've seen clips of this one, because clips recommended by Youtube seems to be the only way I ever watch shows at all. I thought the main character was a pretty original concept, her relationship with the titular maid dragon pretty cute, and the tsundere butler becoming pals with the otaku absolutely hilarious. Aaaand then I saw the lolis. Yeah, no. Fuck that noise.

Ahh, took you long enough. We'll see.

Hmmm... See, I just beat a metroidvania after spending 50 hours on it and 15 bucks isn't something I mind missing a sale on too much. That being said, it does look good. It'll go on my wishlist tomorrow. But right now I'd like something a little different. Well-- Ahhhahahhahhaha... Well, okay. I can't argue with that. I gotta appreciate that you used my own weapons against me. ...then again, TWO can play at that game! Not really sure, frankly. Whatever makes me go "oh yeah, that's the one." Which is the method I follow most of the time.

And now I need a new game. Not sure I want to play two FEs at once, so what do you guys think? Bloodstained was a recommendation, one that worked out stupendously, so I'm willing to hear y'all out again. Nope. I am not you, Sooks. I am willing to spend 50 hours of my life trying to beat bosses without taking a hit for a shiny medal of pixels, but I will not do this. That achievement can go suck a lemon.

Well, that's it for Bloodstained. Took me a little over 50 hours, though around 40 of those were spent failing, which is... funny, if nothing else. What can I say. That was absolutely wonderful. Excellent game all around, lots of variety in equipment, awesome spells, great visuals, a godly soundtrack, extremely fun bosses (for the most part), an excellent fun filled with unique areas and fun challenges... Honestly, it's just all around amazing. I had so much fun with it, and while at the end I did start feeling the burnout a bit, that was mostly because of my self-imposed challenge to get all the boss medals. And then Steam didn't even give me a sad little achievement for my troubles. Meh... About the only fault I can find with it is that you can tell in a couple of places that they had to rush because they were running out of time and budget. For example, you know the swimming shard goof? There were plans to place a boss in that area. Focalor, the only boss from Curse of the Moon who didn't make it to Ritual of the Night. It's likely that this boss would've held the swimming shard... but they ran out of time, so they instead put the thing on a mob and the area was left without a boss. A shame. Also, the final two areas are a previous area made bigger and a really samey-looking ice cavern. Apparently there were plans for a casino area, hence the boss in the big area. I do think they managed to save it decently, those two areas are all right, but still, you can tell. However, these little flaws are but triffles in the midst of an excellent game. It gets my wholehearted recommendation to anyone who enjoys the genre even a little bit. And now, a little something I made: A tier list for all the bosses, based on my experience beating them flawlessly. There's a boss tier list online, but I didn't find it until after I made my own ugly layout, so eh, bear with it. No big arguments here, I just ranked them based on the enjoyment I had. This list will no doubt upset @Armagon. Beware, major Bloodstained spoilers here. Hang in there, man... You'll get through this.

I was going to sit through the credits of Bloodstained for an achievement. Then I did some googling and I realized why there's an achievement just for sitting through the credits. The credits in Bloodstained are over an hour long. Holy fucking shit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand there we go. Bloodstained is over. ...To be honest, I cheated. You see, the final boss is highly susceptible to the librarian's time stop shard. Seriously, the final friggin' boss can just be frozen and then you whack him till he dies. I used this technique to get the medal, for no greater reason than... frankly, I can't be bothered. For every attempt at the final boss, I have to spend 3 minutes spamming healing items and spearing the traitor. All to get hit by a projectile completely out of nowhere and have to do it aaaaaaaaaaall over again. Yeah, no thanks. Final thoughts in a little bit. I have 99.90% map completion and I can't just leave it at that.

Well that was a nice ending. This could all have been prevented if Alfred had any idea what the word "communicate" means, but eh. We wouldn't have had a fun boss fight if he did. Now all that remains is to go back and do the final boss without taking a hit. Honestly, the guy's way easier than the traitor, so it should be feasible. It's almost over now.

Finally. FINALLY She's dead. If I die against the final boss even with my 17 heals I am going to fucking cry.

Never mind my last post, I got it. The shield fails because I'm aiming it poorly, because as it turns out, the shield only works if you put the shield in front of the attack instead of leaving your belly exposed. What a load of bullshit, huh? I swear, instead of grey matter I have... pink fucking matter in my skull. Chewing gum. Chewed chewing gum!

All right, so now the shield shard has decided that it 100% refuses to work against the boss's death light laser attack. It just goes "whoop, no, sorry, it's going through me and you're gonna eat shit." So I guess I'll have to learn to dodge it the conventional way, which I can only assume involves inverting in a fraction of a second. Joy.

Well, that was great fun, to lose one of my pivotal units and a legendary weapon because siege tomes are fun. Now to bash my head against the bloodstained wall again. If I can at least beat the penultimate boss, I'll be content for today.

Yeah, no. There's like four of us and that guy does not fit the bill. I mean, for fuck's sake, he uses Barst. The guy who kills everyone, and yet he still manages to somehow follow the extremely boring metas from 2010. Utterly disgraceful.

Old news, I'm afraid. Hahahahahahahaha... No, unfortunately, I am a dumbass who likes playing with fire. And then I got burned, by the RNG. Hah! Heck it is. I haven't gotten a berserk, a sleep, a silence, a warp or even a sad little rescue staff. Absolutely fucking nothing. They gave me one physic, and that's it for ranged staves. So unless there was a silence staff in the one village that I let be destroyed... There was a crooked path with lots of twists and turns and 11 turns to get to the boss (at first the map presented itself as a 9 turn defense map, but on turn 9 it switched to a mad rush to a throne with a 20 turn limit... except the 9 turns from the first part were still counted). They covered the entire thing, no questions asked. Heck, my units were taking like four or five shots in total every turn, that's how many there were. Honestly, I think the concept's cool, but he got WAY carried away with the siege tomes. Even if the hitrates are low... well, all it takes is one unlucky break and this shit happens. He had a legendary, too. Sigh... Today's just not my day, is it.

Oh wait, actually, that wasn't even a second map. It was the second part of the first map. Guess that explains the weird turn count. ...Still doesn't explain why the creator thought it was a good idea to put a bazillion siege tomes in unreachable spots.

Great. Fucking amazing. I go play this stupid hack just to relax, and what happens? I encounter a map that does the Conquest final chapter funny, so I have to go two maps without saving (though to be fair they were two short maps, but still)... And then my warrior gets hit by a 23% eclipse and a 28% bolting and dies two turns before the end. Well, I mean, I'm not gonna reset two friggin' maps. So I guess fuck my asshole and my support triangle. Absolutely excellent, goddamnit, I love my luck and FE.

The first time, I hadn't a plan for the second boss, so I was able to beat the first one in no time at all, like 20 minutes or something. Now that I have a plan to make my life less miserable, I might as well be trying for 10 fucking hours, I'm never going to beat the boss flawlessly ever again. Yeah, fuck this. I'm gonna play the hack some more, because this is starting to seriously piss me off. And I fucking like the boss, but at this point I really would like to be done with this game, thank you very much.

Not bad at all! It's more than I'd ever have the heart to do. Congratulations! The prologues are kinda stinky. They're puzzle-like, unlike the main game. Hope this time you are able to power through 'em.

Okay, so there's a bit of an issue... I beat the boss, but there's another boss immediately afterwards, and I have to kill them both in a row without getting hit once. Oof... Well, okay, I lie. Apparently you can repeat this fight if you win the game. So if it comes to that, I can get the first boss's medal, power through the second boss with healing, then come back and do the same process for the second boss's medal. I'd feel like an absolute badass if I managed to beat two bosses in a row without taking a single hit, but... I don't think it'll happen.