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[backlogbook]

[backlogbook]

[backlogbook]

Coming soon

It's been a while! I didn't really have any inspiration for something to write here during that time, but I actually finished a game last week! Expect an article featuring that mystery game soon. I'll also post some more screenshots from AC Valhalla, which I recently picked back up again.

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Quick Look: Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory

The announcement of Sora joining the roster of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was a fine pick for the final character, but as someone with very little knowledge on Kingdom Hearts, it also did very little for me. What the showcase *did* do, however, was remind me that there was a KH themed rhythm game called Memory of Memory that I was planning to pick up. I am a pretty big fan of the music by Yoko Shimomura, specifically her work on the Mario & Luigi games and Final Fantasy XV. When I heard that Kingdom Hearts music was basically both of those combined, I realized it was quite the untapped goldmine for me. After the Smash showcase I found the game on sale and bought it, and now that I'm playing it almost a year after its initial release, I found something unexpected.

This is Theatrhythm.

For those who don't know, the Theatrhythm Final Fantasy games are a duo of Nintendo 3DS rhythm games where you make a party of beloved characters from the Final Fantasy series and have them perform attacks on enemies by tapping, holding and sliding encroaching music notes. What sets Theatrhythm apart from almost every other rhythm game is RPG elements; you level up your characters so they can take more hits (you can mess up more notes before losing the song) or strengthen them so they can defeat more enemies, earning you more rewards. Where most rhythm games are content to just hand you their entire music library and tell you to work towards beating your own high score, Theatrhythm has a ton of unlockables to work towards.

This is also true in Melody of Memory. There is a story mode where you can go through songs and complete missions to unlock artwork and new playable parties, and you can level these parties up so you have an easier time making it through songs. Compared to Final Fantasy there are a lot less playable characters, you can't mix-and-match them, and from what I can tell they only differ visually. The progression elements are still here, but not nearly as deep as the Final Fantasy counterparts.

Also unlike the 3DS games, MoM has gameplay where the camera is behind the characters' back, as they run along a path where they smack enemies to the beat of a song. For 95% of the game this works pretty much just as well as the more classic Guitar Hero-like overview of the Final Fantasy games, but occasionally I got blindsided because an enemy was hidden from view by my own characters, larger enemies, or even the road we're running across twisting and turning awkwardly. It happened just enough that it was starting to annoy me. Nothing that can't be circumvented by replaying the song and learning enemy placement (as is where the longevity of rhythm games typically comes from), but I couldn't help but think, "how was I supposed to know that was coming?"

The music was a highlight, at least. I can count the amount of songs I didn't care for on one hand, and almost all of those are stuffy old Disney songs. There's some phenomenal stuff in here, my personal highlights being Fragments of Sorrow, Vector to the Heavens, Rowdy Rumble, and The Promised Beginning. I'll definitely be checking out these soundtracks in full in the future!

I'd recommend this game, especially if you like rhythm games or the music that Shimomura is known for. It has a couple of issues that make this not as good as the Final Fantasy entries, but I still had a great time going through the main campaign, and while writing this I'm already having the urge to boot up my Switch and continue unlocking more screenshots of a series I've never played.

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Update

I made a big shakeup to the Current Status page you can access from the top of this blog, since I realized July is kind of a crazy month for new games. Two weeks ago was the release of Monster Hunter Stories 2 (which also got me back to playing Rise), today is the release of indie RPG Cris Tales, and next week are two of my likely GOTY contenders Samurai Warriors 5 and the new Ace Attorney.

Also, I have committed the ultimate backlog crime because friends got me to return to FFXIV. Whoops.

Now I understand if you see Rise and FFXIV on that list and raise an eyebrow. Those are games that you could potentially put years of time into and still not complete. For my backlog list, they're on there because I haven't actually finished the story yet; the 3.0 story for Rise and the Shadowbringers campaign.

Anyway, some games I've been playing are on hold, and there are a bunch of new games now or soon being played. Fun times!

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Oh, the horror!

Some jerk at Ubisoft has a real flair for sudden spookiness.

In Assassin's Creed Valhalla I encountered a sidequest that set out to show "the truth" behind the myth of Beowulf. This apparently involved a local viking jumping into a pitch black pit in order to fight a hallucinatory witch. Not my favourite thing to have to do out of nowhere. Then there is an entire set of collectibles of cursed artifacts that make the surrounding area eerie, with strange flames in the distance and creepy runes floating around the screen. The first big DLC is even dedicated to Eivor taking on a group of seemingly magical druids. Yet somehow the game in which you frequently ingest random mushrooms in order to see bizarre stuff is not the 2020 Ubisoft game that had the most out-of-nowhere creepy stuff.

One routine mission in Watch Dogs Legion has you explore the house of a scientist who recently went missing, only to go into the basement and find a replica of said scientist's childhood home. As you explore it, being led around by an increasingly haunted sounding voice AI, not only do you find out that the electronic barking noises you've been hearing is actually the scientist's dog who's brain got uploaded into a drone (which you promptly put out of its misery), but when you enter this basement house's basement you realise that the voice AI is actually the scientist's mother who befell the same fate as the dog. Having her mind uploaded against her will and then constantly tinkered with until she became just an obedient slave who can't even die. Yeesh. I should've known that the game about London being turned into a police state with zero digital privacy would've had some Black Mirror-esque things happening, but I was absolutely not expecting this. And it's not even the worst.

In another mission you infiltrate the infamous Tower of London to spy on the leader of the aforementioned police state, but when you eventually have to escape, all entrances are locked off except for the dungeons below. As you're about to head in, you find a text file seemingly showing how someone who previously went in there went insane, talking about how voices told him to go deeper. Guess what you have to do? As you delve into the catacombs, you find another text file of a couple of people exploring the place, only to meet the same fate. Though one mentions he has the feeling that one of the statues down there keeps looking at him. And indeed, one hilarious person at Ubisoft programmed one statue you encounter to always be facing whatever entrance you enter its room from. Yeah, screw you too. Eventually you get to the deepest part, exit through a door as creepy noises are coming from somewhere and... find yourself emerging in the Thames, with mission control just continuing the conversation about Mr. Police State like the last five minutes didn't happen.

Yeah, I don't want to talk about it anymore either.

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Introduction

Imagine this situation: a friend suggests you play a certain game or watch a certain show. It sounds up your alley, but you know you have a whole list of media that you started, but for various reasons never finished. So the only thing you can respond with is, "I'll get to it maybe someday." This situation has been increasingly happening to me for years, and it gets really tiring. So I decided it's time to actually try to go through a bunch of games from my backlog, but I also know my determination to see plans like these through is unreliable at best when left to my own devices. I've also recently just had the itch to write some things down about games I've been playing, just some random drifting thoughts and ideas. With that in mind I decided to knock out two birds with one stone: have a blog where I can write down these ideas, and also have some accountability since I'm out in the open now.

Now the plan is to have a stickied note here that shows what I'm currently playing and then just focus on that small list of games. I've also always wanted to make good use of the Photo Mode that modern games have, so I can also post some nice pictures I make. Now a fair warning: I'm not making a schedule for myself here. That's just too much pressure that would turn this more into a dreadful job than a fun aside.

I hope you'll join me on this journey, and seeing comments or likes are a sure thing to motivate me to keep this going!