What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

July 2023


July 31th, 2023

For August here, I want to revisit some of the games I tried and abandoned, just to check in and see if I can get on a roll with any of them. This isn't an August post, but when I came up with the idea, it sounded fun enough to try early. Therefore, I did, in fact, start early.

The first game I retried was My Sims on 3DS, which is fine, but maybe slightly too slow paced for all occassions. I did enjoy playing last night, paragliding and doing little dress designs. Some of the characters had things they were going to launch in the next in-game day, too, or at least the flower shop girl did, so the sense of progression wasn't bad, either. I might check in again soon.

I set a hard time limit for myself to play Dungeon Village 2 before bed, too, and was surprisingly ok sticking to it. I got my village up to 3 stars and feel like a 4-star village is extremely within reach. Having more than one map will stretch this further, though.

With this being the last post of July, I finished no games and generally felt pretty rubbish this month. My taking Friday off means that today'll probably be a pretty bad close to the month, too, and since I had food poisoning yesterday afternoon, I didn't make any leftovers to keep things easier for myself. Oh, well. Hopefully, I have a good August ahead.

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July 30th, 2023

I didn't feel like I could string a sentence together when I got up this morning, so I stalled out for ages before doing this post. I've got a newly crocheted dishcloth and had a lovely home lunch, so it wasn't too bad, but I still feel kind of ridiculous about it.

My most played game yesterday by a longshot was Dungeon Village 2, which I spent a good chunk of the afternoon on. Once I cleared my village's first star, I got set on making it a 2-star village, pictured below, and then felt too "in the middle of things" to just pack it up immediately after that. It's not likely that I'll play it today, since I'm bad at limiting my play sessions with it. If I can dodge overtime well this week, though, I might give it an evening after work.

At night, I went to see Barbie in a completely full theater, which was fun. I got back pretty late, though, so rather than doing anything too intense while I waited to get tired, I started River City Girls. I haven't played it long enough to pass much judgement yet, but it seems neat so far.

This post being done, I still feel pretty rubbish about my ability to accomplish anything, so I don't know what I'll do today. Oh, well! I think that's basically fine.

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July 29th, 2023

Yesterday had kind of a strange feeling to it. There was a big storm last night, and it took out my internet until this morning, which I think gives me an off-balance feeling thinking about it. Today will be pretty laid back, though. After seeing Oppenheimer yesterday, I'm going to a late show of Barbie tonight, and I also plan to get a takeout lunch and pay my bills. The thrills are never ending.

I started the story mode in Sonic Origins Plus last night, since I had a few minutes to kill before going out for dinner. The cutscenes are super cute so far, and I think the game being switched into HD might make Marble Zone mildly less miserable. Placing all the games straight in a row, though, is going to lead to some weird ups and downs in difficulty, I think. It's a neat idea, but will probably be something I play on and off when I have small chunks of spare time.

After my internet outage kicked in, though, I started Dungeon Village 2, one of the digital sale games I picked up recently. It had been so long since I'd last played a Kairosoft game, but I jumped right in without missing a beat! I used to play Game Dev Story and Pocket Academy like crazy, and spent quite a lot of time on The Sushi Spinnery and Pocket Clothier, too. I'd played others a tiny bit, too, due to bad luck with phones and devices dying after my downloads, one of which was the first Dungeon Village. This was really fun to start up again, and I played until I got too exhausted to sit upright. Even though a lot of the Kairosoft sims are same-y, they hit the "oh, I love watching numbers go up!" part of my brain hard, so I'll probably carry on with this until I get a five-star village. I'm looking forward to it, and also trying to stop myself from redownloading the Switch port of Game Dev Story.

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July 28th, 2023

Today I have the day off for absolutely no reason, which, even though I'm still pretty tired, is a very good feeling. I'm gonna go see Oppenheimer this afternoon and soak in three hours worth of movie theater air conditioning on a super hot day, and other than that, it doesn't matter what I do. It's excellent.

Last night, I was trying to finish a craft project, but kind of gave up and played Costume Quest for a little bit before bed. It's a very cute and easy going game with piles of sidequests, so it's not bad to play late. Sometime, though, I want to start a play session more intentionally so I can make some actual progress in it.

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July 27th, 2023

Yesterday, I tried to get my sleep back in order by cutting down on my caffeine and going to bed quite a lot earlier than normal, but things were worse. I woke up and just laid there for hours in the middle of the night, had a really stressful morning dream about an inexplicably complex plan to get takeout, and still overslept until the exact same time, again waking up to mild misery. I took tomorrow off work, so maybe a 3-day weekend will help me get things back in order. Either that, or I'll just get a good night's sleep out of exhaustion.

Anyway, I played Jarataire RPG again last night, levelling to the point that I can start collecting the stage three characters. It's satisfying to make progress.

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July 26th, 2023

Today, I'm trying to get back in the habit of morning posting, which I feel like helps me have a better overall day. I'm still super tired, but I'm up and going, and that counts for a lot.

After posting last night, I played co-op Halo, finding out that I did not need to be so worried about my FPS skills because I am not friends with jerks. The mix of lovely outdoor scenery and slick sci-fi buildings really surprised me when we got to the second mission, and I'm having a way better time than I expected.

Before bed, I also kept grinding away in Jarataire RPG, genuinely delighted to have hit a point where I have to level grind in a mahjong solitaire game. It bothered me a little at first that you can match any uncovered tiles, not just the edge ones, but it makes clicking through chains of matches really satisfying, especially when special attacks start going off, too. I feel like this game was made specifically for me.

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July 25th, 2023

I'm still dragging, so it's another late, and probably short post tonight.

I wanted to try out some of my new download pickups, so I tried the wordily titled Metantei Conan Skateboard Run: Kaito Kid to Shinpi no Hihou last night. For the purposes of this blog, I'm going to call it Detective Conan Skateboard Run from here on out. I'm not really a massive Detective Conan fan, though I like the character design. This game concept seemed goofy, though, so I wanted to try it. It is decent fun so far- it's a Temple Run/Subway Surfers type game, with set levels and a decent amount of challenge to clear all goals on each, even early on. I might burn out on it, but maybe not for a while.

I kept going with Jarataire RPG, too, and am now one monster from collecting everyone in stage two. This was well worth the dollar or two I paid for it.

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July 24th, 2023

My post is way later than I usually like to be, but I'm feeling kind of tired and having trouble focusing today. That is ok, though, I think.

Yesterday, I spent another 199 yen that I had left on my JP eShop card, but since it was a super cheap game picked up with the spare change, called For a Vast Future, I'm not counting it against my cleared game total.

I was going to try Indivisble from my set of download pickups last night, but turned on the wrong machine and was defeated enough to just kind of roll with it. Because of that, I ended up trying Costume Quest on my XBox instead. It was really cute and charming, at least at the start! I want to play more tonight if I can manage to get through everything else.

I played a tiny bit more of Jarataire RPG, too, accidentally clicking on a level I wasn't ready for, halfheartedly trying to beat it, and falling asleep. It was perfect late night gaming.

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July 23rd, 2023

Yesterday was nice, but I hit the JP Nintendo eShop sale and picked up a couple more sale games. River City Girls and a Detective Conan skateboarding game were last night's victims. As such, I now have to raise my cleared games goal before I can buy another physical game to 14. I don't have the "oh no, I am such a failure" feeling I usually would in cases like this, since I picked up four games I wanted at good discounts without adding to my physical game shelf. Still, I've gotta clear those fourteen games before winter's double punch of Mario RPG and Dragon Quest Monsters!

My gaming last night was pretty normal. I played a decent amount of Soul Calibur 6, plodding along with sidequests in Libra of Souls. The gameplay feels so good that it never gets tedious, though, and levelling up and gathering new weapons is fun, too.

I played a very tiny bit more of Jarataire RPG, too, spending more time changing tile colors for better visibility than actually playing. This is actually a nice feature. Every monster defaults to its "type" color for the tile background, so focusing on a type advantage makes the tiles difficult to tell apart at the speed I want. Once I did swap out some of those background colors, though, things went a lot faster. It has to be done one party setup at a time, on RGB sliders, but this was a dollar game, so I'm not complaining too hard.

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July 22nd, 2023

My mood is pretty decent this morning, but I'm getting wrecked by allergies again, so it's tough to focus. Hopefully, the medicine I took does something so I'm not condemned to a day of sniffling and nothing more.

I was right that yesterday would be an okay day, though, so I bought a couple cheap games in the Playstation Summer Sale to celebrate that things seem to be looking good in some regards. As such, I'm raising my current "games to clear before another purchase" count to twelve, as I cheated and blew off my ten game goal entirely.

As far as what I actually played went, I kept on with JarataireRPG, finding out that the monster type strengths and weaknesses can matter quite a lot, and finding some attack combos dependent on what characters I've got on the board as well. It's decent fun, even if the game itself is a bit unpolished.

I'm hoping for a calm day, but don't know if I'll do too much gaming. That's okay, though. It's nice to have a no-goals-Saturday.

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July 21st, 2023

Even though I think today could be an okay day, my asthma was so nasty when I got up this morning that I wonder if I've had a cold rather than just being a lazy rat the last few days. As far as things go, though, it's fine to figure that out on a Friday. Today won't be super hard, and I have a couple of days to rest ahead.

Before bed last night, I was going through my past Switch impulse buys to see if I had anything breezy to play while feeling brain dead. I found JarataireRPG, an anime girl/monster collecting mahjong solitaire RPG that I'd picked up for a dollar or two a while back. It does have cheap game vibes, with no capital letters on the level select screen and a somewhat mysterious damage system on the enemy's side. I don't really care, though. I get to level up, I get to collect things, and I get to play mahjong solitaire. It's likely that I'll stick with this one for a bit.

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July 20th, 2023

Today is a short post because I didn't want to get up and there was some diverting texting drama when I did. Last night, I played Disney Tsum Tsum a lot when I failed to relax enough to go to sleep. The title screen is maybe a bad screenshot of the day, but I wanted it for myself as a color guide, to use with a Tsum Tsum crochet book.

I built another model last night, too, the Arsene Gundam X from the SD World Heroes series. It's very cute, maybe one of my favorites so far! I got it in the mail and built it the same day.

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July 19th, 2023

From now on, my new measure of what an uneasy feeling person I am is going to be that, when one of my friends wanted to use the XBox online services to play Halo: Combat Evolved co-op, I panicked because I don't play many shooters, downloaded it ahead of time, and cheat played the first mission on my own to make sure I'm not dead weight. I played Halo 2 multiplayer about 15 years ago, so I did not feel prepared for such a challenge.

Actually, it turns out I was fine, and maybe didn't need to worry, which is also usually true. I'm not sure what I expected, but it felt "gamier" than I expected, and my fears about the controls being too complicated were totally unfounded. It's not like I did amazingly, but I wasn't awful, either, and that's enough.

I also picked Dragon Quest X Offline back up last night, just to do a few battles, and think I know where I need to go next. It's a good feeling.

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July 18th, 2023

Yesterday was mildly crazy, and it's a bad allergy day today, leading to not much gaming done and a lack of energy to write about what did get played. Last night, though, I cleared ten percent more of the playground in Powerwash Simulator, finding out that at the right angle, the game lets you just watch clouds float by and relax. It's a nice touch.

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July 17th, 2023

Today, my post is somewhat late just because I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I got off of work on time today, though, and have a lazy lentil curry boiling away on my stove, so it feels like a very peaceful time to post. Yesterday, though, I didn't play games so much, either! I did mess with the demo of Dynacat some more, and wasn't too proud to pop it on easy mode to figure out the mechanics a bit better. With that safety button on, I got to the first boss. While I was fighting it, though, the game crashed every time I got four hits in! I wonder if I was causing a glitch by coming at it from the wrong angle, or something like that, so this probably isn't my last post about Dynacat. Like I said yesterday, it's a Sonic style game where you're a flying cat, it would have to insult me directly and personally for me to not be all in on the concept. Even if it's not tonight, I'll probably go back in and see if I can figure out an alternate way to take the boss out.

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July 16th, 2023

I was a very popular and social lady yesterday, so I didn't really end up playing many games. I did take a look at the set of demos on the XBox store homepage, though, and ended up downloading a few of them, just for the heck of it. Mostly, I grabbed RPGs, but, with shining eyes, I also downloaded the demo for Dynacat, a 3D platformer where you're a little sparkling fairy cat. I only messed with it for a few minutes last night, and it felt really unforgiving, especially for a first level! However, you're a lil kitty who can zip through a big loop-de-loop like Sonic, and therefore, I'm gonna play the demo more today.

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July 15th, 2023

It's the weekend now, but I still have some antsy vibes overhang from the previous week. That is okay, though. This will be a relaxing, laid back weekend.

Last night, I ended up spending way more time finishing up the King of Fighters: A New Beginning manga than playing games, sitting in my office chair, drinking a fancy little sparkling strawberry juice, and shotgunning the last three volumes. It was fun, and better than I expected, with some fun character stuff and nifty art, too! It was actually worth the effort I went to in finding decently cheap physical copies of the whole thing.

I did play some games, though, giving all three of the files I'm juggling in Soul Calibur 6's Libra of Soul mode a battle.

I played the Game Gear version of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine off of the Sonic Origins Plus disc for a few minutes, too. It felt harder than the Genesis version, but I could have just been tired.

Since I couldn't sleep, I also finished up an easy little model kit, a VF-31E Siegfried from Macross Delta. I'd screwed one of these up badly when I first bought them, due to trouble with the stickers, so I've had three of them stashed for years, somewhat afraid to build them. I'm happy with this, so I'll move forward with the other two now.

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July 14th, 2023

This is not a great morning. I'm trying to eat well for breakfast, since I have a long meeting scheduled right at my lunch break, but everything just keeps going wrong in minor, irritating ways.

There's no screenshots today, due to some technical difficulties and frustrations, but I started playing a new mobile game, Kemono Friends Kingdom last night. It seemed a little basic, but cute, though I might have to quit due to my phone being upset that I dare play a game from this decade on it. I watched the anime with my friends when I lived overseas, so it would be nice if it worked out, but if it doesn't, it doesn't.

I also played Vampire Survivors for a few minutes, which I'll probably drop and go back to PowerWash Simulator as an exhaustion game. The vibes just aren't lining up right for me.

I just remembered I need to be logged on for work a few minutes early today on top of everything, so short, bad post today. Tomorrow will be better.

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July 13th, 2023

Today I got out of bed wanting to feel more positive, but then instantly got a text that my apartment building was shutting off my water for the day. I went over to Starbucks and used my "fancy treats" balance with them to get a much more extravagant than normal morning coffee, though, and am hoping I can brute force things into balancing out a bit.

Last night, I played Vampire Survivors for a while again, and am still not sure if I like it or not. The constant unlocks and levelling are nice, but I feel like the game itself is maybe mildly tedious. That's fine for playing super late at night, and the pixel art is so nifty, but I don't know if I share a lot of the enthusiasm about it.

I kept chipping away at the event in Disney Tsum Tsum for a while, too, truly kicking some butt last night. I'm trying to complete a character set for the lower gacha while I'm earning a lot of coins, as a point boost, but even with even odds, being down to the last two characters is slightly frustrating. It'll pay off for my scores in the long run, though, so I don't mind that much.

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July 12th, 2023

I am still not feeling amazing today, but that is ok. Last night, I turned on King of Fighters XV for a few minutes since I'd been reading the KOF XIV tie in manga, The King of Fighters: A New Beginning, and wanted to see Shun'ei's mismatched pant leg lengths in action. It's a very video game-y flourish, I respect it.

After a brief few minutes of that, I made a very minor dent in the Soul Chronicle mode in Soul Calibur 6, playing a few of Kilik's chapters. It was fine, but not super engaging. I got really sleepy and just went to bed from there.

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July 11th, 2023

I kind of zoned out for hours last night after work, which I've been trying to avoid and don't feel great about. I did turn on my XBox for a few minutes and ended up playing Kameo: Elements of Power, which I'd had downloaded since buying the machine. I only played this a very, very small amount on XBox 360, maybe a single play session, but I had fun with it last night. The combat style of the different monsters you can turn into really did have good variety, especially for a first level, so I'm a little curious to see where it goes next.

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July 10th, 2023

I'm continuing to not kick butt right now, but I played some mobile games yesterday. Disney Tsum Tsum was my main game, since I played quite a lot in a Wal-Mart auto waiting room. Right now, I've got the first part of the 9th Anniversary Event cleared, and'll probably keep playing into the second chunk.

Before bed, I played Slash and Girl a little, too. I was super tired, so I went to bed really early by my standards, but still felt too antsy to actually sleep. This was a little boring, but it helped me clear my brain out a bit.

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July 9th, 2023

I am making a short evening post today due to my own hubris. I was on a road trip weekend and made what I thought to be the power move of following a "vegetable plate" at Cracker Barrel with a Baja Blast Freeze from Taco Bell. The only thing to which this has granted power is stomach pain. Before I go to lay on my floor clutching a bottle of Tums however, please enjoy this screenshot of a game of Columns nearing its end, played poorly due to the fact that I was half asleep in a hotel room and also kind of suck at Columns.

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July 8th, 2023

Yesterday I had kind of a meltdown, so it wasn't a good day. Before bed, though, I had pepped up enough to play Soul Calibur 6 for a few minutes, which was a good way to decompress.

I'm hoping to have a fun day today, and if nothing else, I'll play a bit of Pikmin Bloom. I hope decent weekends are ahead for all of you out there, too.

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July 7th, 2023

Last night, I played Vampire Survivors for maybe 45 minutes or so, and I didn't really have a lot of fun along the way. I think that's more of a mood issue than anything, though, so I'm not counting the game out just yet. I feel kind of down, so that's it for today's post! There's probably not going to be much time for games tonight, but I'll have at least a tiny update tomorrow morning.

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July 6th, 2023

I'm really sleepy this morning, but doing my best to be cheery. Last night, I wanted to play something new when I was pretty tired, so I tried Vampire Survivors on Game Pass. I love levelling up, so I played this a bit longer than I meant to and'll probably try again soon.

I did ten quick rounds of Disney Tsum Tsum, too, making sure to keep my login bonuses going while continuing to chip away at the current in-game event.

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July 5th, 2023

Today's post will be kind of short because I don't have all that much to say. I tried playing Kid Icarus a bit last night, like I threatened to yesterday, and enjoyed it more than I expected. I beat the first stage for the first time, giving me the impression that I'm better at games than I was when I first tried it.

I kept chipping away at the super slow 9th Anniversary Event in Disney Tsum Tsum, too, getting enough points for a skill ticket. I instantly tossed it on my Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 pair tsum, making an already game breaking pair even better.

Today is my first day back to work after vacation, but even if it goes spectacularly badly for some reason, I'll still play PowerWash Simulator or something tonight.

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July 4th, 2023

Today's post is kind of late because I overslept and woke up with an awful allergy attack! I'm feeling somewhat better now, since I sat and drank fancy coffee and played Disney Tsum Tsum until my allergy medicine kicked in.

Speaking of Disney Tsum Tsum, yesterday was an unlimted play day, to get the 9th anniversary event proper started. I got a message from another player about it and, since I was feeling somewhat worried about my productivity, pushed it off a bit to do other stuff. She mentioned that the event was "slow moving," though, when talking about taking advantage of the free play day, so I decided to check it out and see if I could get a head start. "Slow moving" was a really polite understatement! The prizes are decent, but the point totals for each challenge cleared are miserably low, so it's a bit of a slog. I only played for an hour or so because the challenges themselves were so easy I got a bit bored. With play limits intact, though, I don't think this'll be so bad. I sometimes think that energy limits are a big help in masking repetitive gameplay on some mobile titles.

Before bed, I played some PowerWash Simulator, too. I'd been trying to save it for when I felt stressed out at night, but truthfully, I enjoy this game when I'm feeling okay, too. I got about another 15% of the playground cleaned and finished up the surprisingly impressive Stegoslide.

Yesterday, though, I was trying to accomplish non-game things, whether they were important or not, and I finished off a dishcloth (not pictured here) and tow model kits! First, I cleared the SD version of the MSN-O4 Sazabi and learned a lot about how not to paint a Gundam. I really messed up the knees! I was overall ok with it, but wish I'd been a little smarter about dodging a couple of the stickers.

I also finished a kit I'd had on my shelf for a couple years, of the girl version of the Master from Fate/Grand Order. I used to play that for periods of a few weeks at a time, then abandon it for months, then pick it back up again. Its been a couple years since my last play, but I'm still pretty happy with this model.

Today, I want to do some more crafty stuff and maybe get angry at Kid Icarus, too, after a friend's casual mention of it. I'll have to decide if I want to torture myself like that later.

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July 3rd, 2023

I didn't do very well with games last night because I felt inexplicably nervous and overwhelmed. This morning, I still feel pretty bad, so I might try to finish some craft projects to try and lessen my "things to do" list later. Last night, though, I essentially froze up for a while because I hadn't kept up well with my Japanese study for a few days, and also because there were too many choices when it came to watching some Gundam. It was super normal.

After I had that somewhat solved, though, I ended up turning on my Wii to play Tron Evolution Battle Grids for a few minutes. It was kind of relaxing to play something where I moved around a bit, even though I'm still thrown by the thought of a Tron minigame collection where lightcycle battles are the worst minigame on offer. I chipped away a bit at story mode, though, and had a decent time. I wish story mode would have let me progress through certain games in a chunk, to binge play Hyper Ball, but I'm sure I'm unlocking stuff on the back end. This isn't a bad game to have in my rotation.

Much earlier in the day, I also cleared the daily raffle challenges in Disney Tsum Tsum. It was fun, but not super noteworthy.

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July 2nd, 2023

My biggest gaming thing yesterday was officially giving up on Sonic Blast I got stuck on a one-way pipes and currents "puzzle" in the first water level, watched a Youtube video about how to get through it, tried to replicate it, and then decided I didn't really need any of that in my life. Fellow Neocities user Pastel Shoal commented that Sonic Chaos and Triple Trouble are better, so I will probably give one of those a shot in a few days. If I don't, though, they're not going anywhere.

Later on, I did play quite a lot of Soul Calibur 6, but quit when, upon feeling that it was just super difficult to face the same direction as my opponent, I looked at the clock and realized it was after 2:00 am. Even with the caveat that I'm splitting my Libra of Soul playthrough over a few different characters, I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of the mode. It's neat.

It was a decent mobile game, too. I wasn't really going to post about Pikmin Bloom today, but was very satisfied to have gotten all of the space suit Pikmin for the Pikmin 4 launch event. They're very charming!

I also decided to at least half heartedly play the 9th Anniversary event in Disney Tsum Tsum. I got enough coins for a gacha pull and unlocked Star Mickey, one of the special characters for the month, right away. He's kind of worthless, though, so I don't know how worthwhile he'll be even for added event points. Right now, there's a raffle event, where you clear challenges to get tickets for a drawing, running. In a few days, the real event will start, though, and I'll see if I want to deal with Star Mickey or not then.

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July 1st, 2023

Since this is the start of a new month, I wanted to start off by clearing another Sonic game, with this month's victim being Sonic Blast, a Game Gear game that honestly doesn't seem great so far. The pre-rendered graphics are an interesting look, but I was having a bad time getting Knuckles to cling to walls or fly, which made things a little frustrating. Last night, though, I cleared three zones in a flash, so I must be about halfway done. I'll keep going with this just because I don't want to give up now.

Once I got tired of that, I switched over to Soul Calibur 6 for a few minutes, doing a couple quick battles in Libra of Soul mode. There's not a ton to say about it, but I did have fun.

To finish off this post, I also hit my 30,000 steps for the week in Pikmin Bloom last night! I don't think I've ever cleared this goal on a Friday before, but I also don't usually take walking heavy trips in the middle of the week, so it seems fair enough that I did clear it.

I'm off to make a couple of salads for a family thing today, but am a little draggy. Hopefully I feel peppier a bit later on today!







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