Here's what I've been playing lately...
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light
aka BLUE REFLECTION TIE for the real ones. The Blue Reflection franchise has become my latest obsession and thanks to a well-timed Koei Tecmo sale on Steam, I have completed my collection with Second Light's Ultimate Edition.
Immediately after finishing the first game I was chomping at the bit for more Blue Reflection in my life and after Koei Tecmo + GUST were notably absent from the 2024 Steam Summer Sale, I was rather disheartened. But now that KT has decided to grace us with a belated summer sale of their own, I managed to snag the Ultimate Edition for a cool $46, down from the list price of $115. Not cheap, but when are Koei Tecmo-published games ever cheap?
I am already a massive fan of (almost) everything Blue Reflection and Second Light promises me more of what I've come to love. As a video game, the sequel has marked improvements in so many different facets. The Database has seen some dramatic expansions that integrate well with the in-game item menus, which immediately gives me hope that crafting will be much more manageable in this game, despite taking a step up in complexity. There is now the option to break into a full-on run instead of the languid brisk jog from before, which makes map traversal feel so much better. In general the game-feel is better and there's an additional layer of polish atop everything that cues you into the fact that this is a bigger, more expensive game.
Not everything is just "Blue Reflection, upgraded" and there are some game systems that are certainly different from the first game but not necessarily better or worse. The biggest change is in the combat system, which I'm still coming to grips with but is already lots of fun. It seems like there are some similar complaints about easy difficulty for this game like there were for the original Blue Reflection, so I've taken the liberty to download a system save that opens up Hard and Deathwish difficulty from the get-go so I can bump up the difficulty and keep myself fully engaged with the combat and progression systems as I make my way through the game. I had a blast running through Blue Reflection on Hard so I have high hopes for what the Deathwish experience will have in store for me.
I am only 8 or 9 hours into the game so far but I love what I've seen. Second Light is the last major piece of Blue Reflection media I've yet to experience, as I have already 100%ed the original game, done pretty much everything there is to do in the now-defunct mobile game Sun, and watched all of the anime Ray. Although this comes with a bittersweet tinge as the final entry in the series left for me, I'm happy that Second Light appears to have a wealth of content, both story and gameplay, to enjoy across multiple playthroughs.
shapez
shapez is distilled automation game, taking the essence of games like Factorio, Satisfactory, and the like and concentrating it into a pure, no-distraction no-frills form. The early tutorials feel perfect to me, with enough freedom do make mistakes and do what you want, while giving clear and intuitive guidance as to what you should be doing. I feel less pressure when there is such little penalty to failure. Building parts and structures is instant and there is no currency to waste or lose with misclicks or plans in my head that go wrong in practice. The flow of "fail, solve problem, iterate, improve" feels so easy and I find myself constructing more complex factories in just an hour or two than what I've managed to make in Satisfactory or modded Minecraft in quadruple the time.
Whether I'll be able to hang on throughout the complexity curve or get thrown off like Wander in Shadow of the Colossus, flung into the sky until I'm a tiny speck wondering why the hell my factory is getting bottlenecked, we'll just have to wait and see.
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome is the sequel to Dejobann Games's AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. You can tell it's the sequel because there's a lot more As.
For the Awesome is a sequel-stroke-remaster of A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and is a hybrid action-puzzle game where you BASE jump down obstacle courses in first-person. The structure of the game is stage-based score attack with a familiar zero-to-five-star ranking system based on your stage score. Things like proximity to obstacles, hitting bonus targets, and landing in precise areas all contribute to your score, and there's a certain ritual to retrying the same stage again and again to perfect your run with a choreographed series of high-risk, high-reward maneuvers.
The bite-sized structure of the game is one thing that keeps me coming back to this series for short, frequent sessions, but the other draw is the game's charm. At times painfully obtuse and cringe-inducingly-oblique, the AaAaAA!!! series is unapologetic in its identity and unique brand of humor, and I can't help but respect it. Individual screenshots of this game can become downright incomprehensible with UI elements indicating your "proxy", "hugs", and "kisses". In reality, the game isn't overly complex, but it has just enough depth to warrant my revisiting it for a couple jumps every once in a while.
Roundup
- PSO2 New Genesis is holding its Super Phantasy Festival during the month of July. I'm primarily a PSO2 classic/base player but the FOMO draw of basegame story-related items from this New Genesis event is too strong. Lots of grinding lately, which I hope to scale down once this month comes to an end.
- Forza Horizon 4 has announced its delisting from all storefronts as of late this year. The game servers will stay operational for an unspecificed amount of time afterwards. I've been clocking some serious hours in FH4 after buying it earlier this month following the delisting announcement. After 85+ hours I'm still having fun, but I'm no longer discovering brand new chunks of content at each turn. The racing at the core is satisfying to play on a gamepad and the map design and massive selection of cars lend some incredible variety to the things I can do any time I boot the game up. I may do a write-up of this game in the near future but in short, I highly recommend any fan of racing games to check this one out before it disappears from storefronts forever.
- NEO Scavenger is a game I have decided to revisit after SsethTzeentach put out a video on it. I had gotten the game pretty soon after its 2014 release and put a few hours into it before moving on to other games. Between the game's updates and patches since release and the passage of time making me a a more experienced gamer since then, the game is much easier for me to play now. The UI doesn't do you many favors when it comes to understanding exactly what's going on, and a lot of key information about how imminent your death is due to disease or bludgeoning is tucked into different tabs or tooltips that are not quite "b-b-b-bloody screen!" levels of in your face. NEO Scavenger is not a newbie-friendly or easy experience (which is kind of the point) but it's one that I appreciate much more than I did a decade ago.
My highlights are definitely Blue Reflection: Second Light and Forza Horizon 4, which have captured my attention pretty strongly. I tend to jump around different games frequently but I really want to stick with these two titles, at the very least, for the long-term.