Gaming

I've been playing Thief Gold. Great game that really surprised me in how well it holds up. It somewhat runs out of steam in the last third though, where I currently am. Missions like "Escape" have been a bit of a pain with their difficulty and aren't as well designed. Still intending to finish it and get to Thief 2, supposedly the best in the series.

On Steam, I've been playing "Songs of Syx". An amazing mixture of Dwarf Fortress, a city builder and even a bit of a civilization-building RTS. Really addictive game that's complex but not overwhelming.

I decided to give Witchfire a chance and so far it hasn't disappointed. Witchfire is developed by a small polish studio established by former Painkiller developers and you can see the Painkiller influences in the art style. As for the game itself it's sort of like a single player extraction shooter with Destiny-like gameplay (it even does the iconic Bungie verticality perspective by having the crosshair below the centerline of the screen) and some light roguelite elements and secrets. The game is still in development (their last roadmap indicated that the full release would be somewhere in 2026) so the full story isn't revealed yet, but I am digging the lore that we know so far and love the ludonarrative consistency of what the game calls Gnosis. It's essentially obtaining esoteric knowledge to get a deeper awareness for the world which leads to the gameplay mechanic of having parts of the world hidden until reach higher gnosis. Higher gnosis also makes you a bigger threat to the witch which also ties back into using gnosis as a way to let the player increase the difficulty and their own pace.

I'm not going to recommend it just yet because I feel like it needs the story to get you through the game. The start of the game can be somewhat boring because you're not feeling very powerful and the mobs are kinda basic and it just feels like you're just wandering through the maps. When you hit Gnosis III the game picks itself up with more challenging mobs but also you start to find more secret areas and you unlock gear that makes you feel more powerful. But then when you're at Gnosis V the game slumps again because you've unlocked most of the areas and you're just leveling up you gear and it feels again like you're just going to the motions unlock the last Gnosis.

But I would recommend putting it on your radar for the 1.0 release because if they can add just as compelling of a story to the gameplay and world they already have I think it would alleviate the pacing issues I think the game has. If they can get it all to work together it's going to be a banger for dark fantasy fans.

I've picked up a few games with the sales, among which Atelier Yumia and Star Ocean: Second Story R. Atelier Yumia is pretty decent, it has the usual issues of open world games, but the crafting is fun (although I think it's a bit less interesting than in previous games, but I haven't played them enough to judge). On the other hand I found Star Ocean to have incredibly dull combat, so I've dropped it after a few hours.

I've also been playing Xenosaga Episode II and Episode III. Episode II was disappointing, it's clearly unfinished and rushed. I think the story had potential, the plot and characters could have been interesting, but the execution is lacking. The combat system is interesting and you can start seeing ideas that will later reappear in the blade games, but the implementation is really slow and repetitive. I'm currently mid-way through Episode III (just finished disc 1), which is a clear improvement, although it plays it a bit safer with more conventional combat. The story is good so far and I'm curious about how it's gonna evolve.

Still wishing ill will on the Oaken Tower open beta demo. I hate that game but keep coming back.

I started Diablo 4 Season 11. So many changes from last season (again)! Whenever the game first came out, I remember making a comment that in a few years time it would be a different game that what it started out as mechanic wise, similar to the path Diablo 3 took. I did not realize how right I was going to be, lol.

Tooling around and checking some Guild Wars 2 boxes as usual, but the new arcade twin-stick Sektori has been eating dedicated playtime all through holidays. A couple of my Steam friends went for some scoring in the side modes, but I got some solid runs in they will have to work pretty hard to pass again. I'm still trash against the games heinous bosses, though. Those things were designed to grind mistakes out of you, and I only occasionally get by even the first tier boss versions without some mistake. I definitely get tired of playing boss rush, but until I'm more consistently passing those without eating hits, campaign mode just isn't going anywhere, and I'd really like to be over that hump. Good thing the other side modes are all pretty great and focus on the core play rather than the fancy but tiresome bosses. Too bad side modes got short-changed on achievements, because the dev annoyingly limited the Steam achievements based on consoles, so there are a bunch of pseudo-achievements that are only displayed in-game.

I picked up timberborn again to check out the changes in the 1.0-experimental versions. I love playing this game.

Saaaame BG3 what a game! I'm in act 2, this is my first run but so far I'm still planning on running again. There's just too much and I can't do it all in one go.