MetalCaveman

Duel Princess Not sure I would call this tower defence, for me that's more along the lines of Defense Grid, Arknights, etc. In this, you have your base on one side, the enemy base on the other and units just move in a straight line, you can't place defences, block lanes or anything like what I normally associate with TD games. That said, it was still pretty fun, the main strategy element comes from unit synergy, skills and balancing deployment costs. You have three classes, the game gives them specific names, but I find it easier to go with the Fate approach, so you have sabers, archers and lancers. Sabers beat archers, archers beat lancers and lancers beat sabers. Within those classes however, you have a pretty decent variety of units, and rarity levels, from common to legendary, the more rare the unit, the higher the deployment cost, thought hey usually have some neat skill or effect to make up for it, including archers that can attack the enemy base directly, lancers that restore mana when defeated, sabers that have shields protecting them, all that fun stuff. You start with a simple deck of units and can get more either by encountering a shop in the map and purchasing more units (assuming you have enough gold), or by completing battles or story events. Running out of cards and losing a battle this way is, thankfully, not a thing here, but having more units to choose form is always a good thing, there's also an overdrive mechanic, where you can fuse two copies of the same unit, increasing their power and HP, pretty useful when needing a strong start or to counter stronger units, specially because deployment cost doesn't increase from this. Further, each princess has their own unique units obtained via story events. Once you've completed a princess' story, their units are unlocked for purchase in the store. Each princess has their own skills too, with Karla IMO getting the short end of the stick, her skill just allows her to draw more cards, when other princesses have skills that poison enemy units, increase attack power and speed, grant invincibility, etc, Karla's skill just feels kinda useless. Specially as there's no increase in mana generation to complement the extra cards. There's player level and princess level, princess level increases the HP of your base as well as increasing the level of their skill, you gain levels by completing stages and story events, up to a maximum of 5, the increase in level is pretty noticeable when it comes to skills, at lvl 5 Dorothea's skill can almost wipe out the enemy base in one cast. Player level affects the level of your units, maxing out at 20, each princess story has a recommended level, ending with Zena at lvl 18. Going back to the first area with a max level army was pretty fun, just a couple of units can handle every fight. Princess level applies to each princess individually, so you have to go through their respective stories and events in order to max their skills, while player level carries through all campaigns, even if you lose a battle and choose to restart, you still get some XP towards your player level, that takes some of the frustration from the early stages. Speaking of princesses, there's quite the cast, the tsundere, the lonely princess that wants to make friends, the chuuni, the whole gang is here, still, they still stand on their own beyond the archetypes they're based on, and their interactions are pretty funny and wholesome (for the most part lol). Each of them also has their own unique design related to their kingdom, with Iris, the steampunk princess, being my favourite. \m/ \m/ The story, similarly, is pretty funny and wholesome, even though the whole thing is "gather the magic crests to defeat the Great Demon Lord" the actual focus is on the princesses and their interactions with each other, meeting other princesses for the first time, forging alliances, making friendships, in fact, and this was kind of disappointing for me at first, then it became a non-issue, Finally, there's the "punishment" mini-game. I thought this was going to be like Senran Kagura Reflexions but it ended up being a bit more simple, this will either be the main draw, or what makes you avoid this game like the plague, personally, I had fun with it but YMMV, however, do know you can skip it if you'd rather just play the rest of the game without worrying about this stuff. Your final score might decrease a bit, but this can be offset by going for as many elite enemies as possible. I suspect it was that part of the game along with the... suggestive voices that accompany it, that resulted in Duel Princess being removed from the eShop, AFAIK, Steam also rejected the game, you can now get it via Fakku or DLSite. Overall, I'd recommend it, fun, cute and wholesome story, a wide variety of characters, simple but entertaining gameplay, and a nice bonus with the punishment mini-game, if you're into games like SK Reflexions, this might be up your alley.

The two characters from this game also appear on Duel Princess, so now that it's on sale, thought I'd get it and maybe go through it before reaching their story in Duel Princess.

Didn't have any friends (that played) at the time, didn't play much of it. Didn't play Eternal Darkness so not much I can say about it, about Adventures, yeah, reading about it, it seems like one of the main criticisms is that it wasn't what people would expect/want from a Star Fox game.

Exclusives: StarFox Adventures StarFox Assault Wave Race: Blue Storm Super Mario Sunshine Third party: True Crime Streets of LA Def Jam Fight for NY Dead to Rights Misunderstood Gem: Digimon World 4 Only about a dozen people would buy this, but they'd be pretty happy... I hope. Edit: Replaced 1080° Avalanche with True Crime Streets of LA, after I remembered I played it first on GC.

Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin Still the weakest of the Soulsborne games for me, there's something about the combat that lacks the finesse and responsiveness of the other games, not to mention that the updates to enemy spawns means that before the game felt a tad too easy, now it can be downright frustrating to go through certain areas, ambushes, tons of enemies, really strong enemies in some of the early areas, all that plus weapons that break after a few swings can make for a very annoying experience, somewhat alleviated by the limited spawns enemies have, kill enough of them enough times and they stop spawning, still takes some time (and potentially many deaths) to do so. Then there's the world itself, the Black Gulch is hell, specially because in SotFS they made it so the stupid poison statues reset after using a bonfire, before you could do a run to get rid of those, heal, and go back to deal with just the enemies, now, they're back every time you rest. The petrifying rats in the pit and other areas are a nightmare to deal with too. In terms of the DLC, I kinda rushed through Crown of the Sunken King, as soon as I saw that everything was poison and that there were a lot of narrow walkways and bottomless pits, I just ran to the boss, went back later to explore a bit more, not a fan of this one. Crown of the Old Iron King was more fun, the Smelter Wedge and soul fragments were a nice mechanic, and of course, being able to get the Fume Ultra Greatsword was neat. I kept waiting for something to knock me to my death while traversing the giant chains that connect the towers, thankfully there was none of that. Finally, Crown of the Ivory King was my favourite, being able to explore an ancient ruined castle that's covered in ice and snow was the best part, a drastic change from the environments found in the other DLCs and in the base game, the boss fight for this one was also the best. In general, my favourite DLC, except for the Frigid Outskirts, that place can burn in hell, a constant blizzard that blocks your view, crystal reindeer that shoot lightning and always blindside you, not a single bonfire (that I could find), that place just sucks. Finally, the ending, the original DS2 ending was underwhelming, this one adds another ending that is much more satisfying, both because there's an actual choice to make and as the payoff if In spite of everything I didn't like about it, it's still an enjoyable game, kinda want to go and get the achievements I'm missing, iirc I'm missing some covenants and NPC equipment.

HELL YEAH!!!!! \m/ \m/

After a flood of art on my twitter timeline, I decided to check out My Dress-up Darling. Pretty cute and wholesome, enjoying it quite a bit. Short summary, super popular, super pretty girl in class turns out to be into anime, manga and VNs and super into cosplay, but can't make clothes at all, meets dude who stays away from everyone due to past trauma but who has an excellent talent and skill at making clothes, wigs, makeup etc due to his family's business (making Hina dolls ), she ends up asking him to make clothes for her cosplay and things snowball from there. Of note though, this series is super heavy on the fanservice, so YMMV.

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin Offline only. This is certainly a change from the DS2 I remember (original vanilla), bunch of enemy placements have changed and now there are dragons where there used to be nothing, this is going to be a thing. One thing that took me by surprise, though I don't remember much from my original playthrough, was weapon durability always this bad? Kill a couple of knights and my sword is already half-broken, I know it's automatically repaired when using a bonfire but still, feels like you need to carry an entire arsenal to make up for how fast stuff breaks.

They just announced at the Taipei Game Show that the game has gone gold, I don't see them going for a full delay, maybe delay the PC version, or just launch with online disabled for now.

lotusinhand - Love their cardistry bootcamp series, great way to start if you want to get into this stuff. BBQ Pit Boys - BBQ, grilled, smoked, fried, etc, pretty self-explanatory. Creative Sauce - Tutorials, reviews, showcases, for DAWs, plugins, etc, everything you need for home recording. Athlean-X - Bodybuilding, strength, tone, general fitness tips, bonus points for anatomy lessons. La Capital - More grilled, roasted, smoked, or fried food, this time in Spanish. SCP Explained - Animations from the SCP wiki, both wiki entries and stories, pretty fun. Tasting History with Max Miller - Recreating historical dishes and taking a quick look at their origin and any historical figures or events related to them. Eugene Teo - More bodybuilding stuff, pretty chill explanations and exercises, a nice change from all the other LET'S GET BUFF channels.

That's a ridiculous level of customization, and I love it. Pretty happy with my 5000D, but if I were in the market for a new case, I'd want something like this lol. Now this is something I'd consider, my "cable management" gives me nightmares, I've even considered getting some custom cables of more appropriate lengths, something like this would be pretty cool, though still needs custom cables, pretty neat either way.

Abysmal Dawn X Bloodborne HELL YEAH!!!! \m/ \m/

Seems like it is going to get some kind of compatibility with the PS5's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, even if it isn't ready by launch, it'll be worth the wait, would be cool if it was like in Demon's Souls, but anything kinda close to it will do.

Elden Ring: It's going to be great, I can't wait! Dead Space Remake: Really hope it does come out this year, also hope they can preserve the atmosphere of the original. Callisto Protocol: This and Dead Space in the same year would be awesome, been looking forward to it since the first trailer came out. Armored Core VI: There's rumours that this may be in the works, obviously won't be coming out this year, but a simple announcement or teaser would make my year lol.

If the story had been like that it'd would have been so much better.

Halo Infinite Definitively ended up enjoying this one way more than I expected, mostly thanks to the gameplay, which carries this game, and carries it HARD. Lack of environment variety (both outdoors and indoors) an underwhelming way to deal with the events of Halo 5, most vehicles feeling like they're made of paper, etc. None of this ended up bothering me as much as it would have if the gameplay wasn't so freaking good. The open world stuff was... AAA Open world stuff, lots of icons, lots of things to do, though to be fair, way less than you average Ubisoft game, with its trillion icons on the map lol, most felt pointless beyond the FOBs, would have preferred upgrade points to be tied to the HVT stuff, make it feel more relevant, specially since the weapons you get from those objectives weren't really worth it IMO, except for the rocket launcher that tracked targets, that thing was awesome. Would have been cool too if you could capture the large outposts and have UNSC forces occupy and defend them, or just having marines patrolling and fighting the banished out in the open world, get them more equipment as time goes on, hell, have them use scorpions as well or something. Grizzlies as an unlockable vehicle would have been cool. Obviously it can't happen, but Infinite would have benefited massively from a Nemesis System kind of thing. While not a fan of how they dealt with the Guardians stuff, I'm actually looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here. Anyway, complaints aside, the gameplay was awesome, loved it, makes this game worth playing, and now I'm kinda looking forward to whatever comes next. Another thing I realised: The Weapon was awesome too. Best character in the game.

From Qureate, I've enjoyed some of their VNs on PC, and after watching the trailer and reading the description: I decided it'd be worth a try. Also, comes out a day after my birthday so that's two birds with one stone. \m/ \m/

Final list: Spider-Man Miles Morales Bright Memory Bloodborne: The Old Hunters Resident Evil 7 Resident Evil 7 Not A Hero Resident Evil HD Remastered Resident Evil 0 HD Remastered Resident Evil 4 Resident Evil 5 Resident Evil 6 Resident Evil Revelations Resident Evil Revelations 2 Resident Evil 2 Remake Resident Evil 3 Remake Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Resident Evil Village Control Metroid Zero Mission Metroid Fusion Alan Wake Alan Wake's American Nightmare Battletech Bright Memory Infinite Warhammer 40K Space Marine 24 Games, 12 of which were Resident Evil games. I could get Halo Infinite and/or Metroid Dread in there if I rushed, but I want to take my time and enjoy Infinite and I don't want to die from an aneurysm thanks to Dread's speed booster stuff.

Went through a list of every game released in 2021 (though not all games actually came out 2021), only writing down those I actually want(ed) to play though. Ys IX Monstrum Nox - Still have my DS copy of Legacy of Ys: Books I & II, a series I want to get into but haven't had the time to do so, also have Origin and Oath of Felgana on PC. Nioh 2 - Haven't even played the first one lol. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Trails in the Sky silently judges me from my Steam library... Another series that seems like it'd consume all my time if I got into it, still want to play it though. Monster Hunter Rise - Yet another game series I want to get into, probably could drop hundreds of hours into these games though, so been kinda hesitant to start. Record of Lodoss War - Don't have much of a reason for not playing this one, just kinda missed when it came out and now it's in the "I'll play it when I play it" list. Nier Replicant - Don't really have the time or the right mindset for a game like this right now, def want to check it out at some point though. Ninja Gaiden Master Collection - Had some technical issues on PC when it came out, and some still persist, that kinda pushed me away long enough that I forgot it came out this year. Scarlet Nexus - Got it at the same time as Sekiro, that meant it got pushed into my backlog immediately. Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut - Ended up getting Sekiro and Scarlet Nexus instead. One of those games I really want to play, just got to have enough time to do so. Tales of Arise - ANOTHER Series I want to get into, when time allows it lol. Lots of games in long running series lol.

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine A fun, fairly solid third person shooter, some sections, like the turret stuff were a bit annoying, and I failed the last QTEs several times, but it's nothing that takes away from the rest of the game. If you're a fan of WH40K or are just looking for something to play, check this one out. Can't wait for Space Marine 2. \m/ \m/ Probably the last game I'll beat this year, so I'll start making my list soon.

Game of the Year Given that I've played through the whole story mode about 9 times by now, plus going back to get all achievements, even The Mercenaries stuff, this was an easy choice. This new generation of RE games (first person, more horror-y) skipped a few steps and went directly into RE4 territory, and it's awesome. \m/ \m/ Runner-Up Looks awesome, plays well (on racing wheel at least), the locations are gorgeous (though I'm probably a bit biased here ), cool cars and more. Oh and there's an Arknights livery for the warthog, what more do you need? (maybe an Azur Lane or Blue Archive livery as well lol)

Given everything he's said and done, like ordering that Ovidio (one of his sons) be released after his arrest during the Culiacanazo, promising Chapo's mother that he'd do everything in his power to bring her son back, apologizing for referring to el Chapo as a drug lord, changing it to "one of the world's richest businessmen", etc. there's a non-zero chance that the Sinaloa Cartel is directly funding him, his campaign and his party. Wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last time.

Second season confirmed, planning to air on April 2022, HELL YEAH!!! \m/ \m/

Travel/event/whatever restrictions don't apply to Mexico, because those things cause "discrimination and hurt the well-being of people", also because apparently Omicron is good for herd immunity, and will be beneficial to us all, so says Gatell, undersecretary of health. Also, now we know the plan for 2024, so far, the president has been cutting funds to INE, more and more, they're in charge of things like organizing elections, verifying results, making sure everything works as it's supposed to, and they keep getting their funds slashed by the very same person that is responsible for its creation (we had IFE before, which got replaced with INE). So now, the president wants people to vote on whether or not he should remain in office and INE is like "we can't, with our current funding, organize something like that in the time frame we've been given" and the president's response is: "LOOK AT INE!! ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY!! EVIL NEOLIBERAL CONSPIRATORS THAT WANT TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM EXERCISING THEIR RIGHTS!! THEY'RE THE ENEMY!!!!" Using the salary the top brass of INE receives as his ammunition, things is, even if they all pooled all their money, that still only accounts for a fraction of what the voting would cost (4 billion to set everything up vs 20 million in salary for the dude at the top of INE), so even with that it still would not be enough. Enter the power play, the president has now said that if INE can't do it, they'll do it by "popular vote" which means "we'll gather a bunch of people that support the president, in states that support the president and then ask them to raise their hand if they support the president", basically how all his other "popular vote" things have been done. This is, in all likelihood, a rehearsal for 2024, were he'll pull the same play: Cut funding to INE Demand elections be held without flaw even without funding INE Can't do their job properly 'cause they don't have to money for it President blames INE, accuses them of sabotaging democracy President demands a "popular vote" election President is all like "SEE! People want me to be president! For life!" That or he automatically names his successor president elect, a puppet so he can stay in power Adding to that: He recently tried to mark all of his projects present and future as "National Security Priorities" meaning they would not only have all details hidden, they would have to be approved in a maximum of 5 days, so, no environmental impact studies, no budgeting, no planning, nothing, the president wants something done, it gets done, no questions asked. He keeps giving control of so many things to the army, infrastructure, construction, medicine, etc. He's even now putting pressure to all states so they hand over all construction projects to the army, all to keep them on his side. The secretary of defence pledged his undying loyalty to the 4T and urged everyone else to do the same. He's made clear that the law, the court, attorney general, etc. Will be used against any strong opposition candidates, with several charges, real or otherwise, used to prevent them from running for office. And that's that, he's president for as long as he wants, have something to say? Congratulations, you're now an enemy of the state, and the full weight of the law, and the army will be used against you you traitor. I wish I was exaggerating, but everyday it seems like we're moving closer and closer to that. Oh yeah, the president ain't too happy about the USA offering a reward for information that leads to the capture of Chapo's sons, he's REALLY not happy about that. As unlikely as it is, I wonder how he'd react to a less hands-off Black Swan*. *The operation where Chapo was captured, originally the Mexican government claimed they had done it all by themselves, but it was revealed that US JSOC was also involved, with Delta being on the ground, though more as analysts/advisors not combatants. Whatever the outcome of 2024, the real scary part is how much power AMLO has given to the army, no way they ever give up on all that, no matter who gets elected next. Oh yeah, even the secretary of foreign affairs is jumping on the "Nintendos are the root of all evil" bandwagon, so that's fun.

https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/4adJLuhgYrPboHAPRfK7Oz/splinter-cell-remake-begins-development-at-ubisoft-toronto Splinter Cell remake on the works, given that they had to delist the video announcing NFTs for Ghost Recon, I don't have any hopes for this. https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/15/22834567/stalker-2-nfts-metahuman-dmarket STALKER 2 is getting NFTs as well, quickly went from one of my most anticipated games of next year to something I won't touch even with gamepass.