What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?
June 2023
June 30th, 2023
tt's been exactly 12 hours since I last started posting, and it's the end of the month, too! For June, I wanted to clear two or three games, and ended up clearing two- Sonic Colors Ultimate and Vengeful Heart, the second of which I'll talk about a bit more later in this post. For July, I'm hoping to clear out at least two more, too.
My first order of business for today's post, though, is to share a couple of photos I snapped at Shedd Aquarium! I really wanted to go while I was in Chicago, since the last time I went I was in grade school, and I remembered it being really beautiful. It was crowded and hot, and I got really tired carrying my luggage backpack with me the whole time, but my memory wasn't wrong. The sheer number of different fish there is amazing, and on top of that, I got to see the cute penguins and a little sea lion show. I fear I shall never recover from my post-trip tiredness, but going to the aquarium was a super worthwhile choice.
During my travel time, with a little bit of polishing things off after last night's post, I finished up Vengeful Heart, too. My Switch says I played it for a little over five hours, which seems about right, and I got both available endings. There's only one choice in the whole game- it really does lean towards the novel part of "visual novel," so it was really easy to get both endings. There was one thing about the aftermath of each choice that bothered me quite a bit, which I won't discuss due to major spoilers. The art in this was extremely cool, though, especially the backgrounds, and I think overall it was pretty good. I'm glad I took the time to clear this.
I also played Pikmin Bloom a lot, since it's a really fun travel game, and got a "woah, no way, you gotta be kidding me, I didn't notice!" style message from it that I walked a lot yesterday. I hope to not walk nearly 13,000 steps today.
June 29th, 2023
My post today is pretty down to the wire, since there's only 32 minutes left to post within the day as I start this. This is the first post that'll cover a trip to Chicago I just got back from, though, since I managed to get tickets to see Twice at the United Center a few months back! When I was living in Japan, they first hit there, so it's been exciting to see them get bigger alongside other K-pop here, too, since coming back to the US. It was weird enough being able to throw their new mini-albums in the cart during grocery runs at Target, but seeing them in an American arena was very surreal! The show was really fun, though, with an almost variety show setup that gave them enough breaks to keep going for two and a half hours, and I had an extremely good time.
The below photos are not so much the best ones I got, so much as the ones I thought would look best with my color scheme here.
As far as games went, I didn't play so much. On the plane, I picked Vengeful Heart back up for a few minutes of public transit visual novel goodness, but I was inexplicably nervous about being on the plane, so I really just played for ten or so minutes. I'll have a lot more to say about this tomorrow.
While hanging out and waiting for the concert, I also played Dragon Quest X Offline for an hour or so on a family member's extremely large TV. I got pretty lost, but am still having fun, so I'll go back to my starting point and figure out how to turn my quest map marker on in my next play session.
Tomorrow's post will have more travel stuff in it, with a couple of photos from today's tourism. For now, I am going to sleep extremely well.
June 28th, 2023
Today I'm going on a bit of a trip, but I got kind of worried for no good reason and was only able to sleep four hours last night! Luckily, I'm not driving, and I have plenty of chances at coffee, so it should be okay.
Yesterday, I did end up dodging the bad air quality by going to play Pikmin Bloom at the mall, and finally got some hydrangea petals! Even though that let me clear the mission I was stuck on, I get the feeling it'll ask me to plant more hydrangeas soon. Hopefully, I'll find more in the next couple of days.
Before bed, I played Dragon Quest X Offline for a bit, too, and was able to level up a bit more and then find a camp with a church to save at and a new set of armor to buy! My next in-game goal is going to be to get that armor.
Today will involve enough downtime that I think I'll end up playing Switch quite a lot. I'm not quite sure what I'll play yet, but I'll have a shiny new post about it tomorrow night!
June 27th, 2023
Yesterday was fine, but I don't have a lot to say about the games I played. I went to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse instead of playing a lot of stuff, which was a good choice!
I did grind out a few levels in Dragon Quest X Offline late last night, translating a bit of skill tree stuff to make sure I wasn't screwing my character over due to lack of basic Japanese reading ability. It was fun, but not super noteworthy.
I wanted to play Pikmin Bloom quite a lot today, but the air quality here isn't good enough to walk outside. In a few minutes, I might go to the mall just to get a little playtime in, but this'll be a big day for staying indoors.
June 26th, 2023
I got all of my work stuff done yesterday and then had a major crash, really only managing to make a soup from a vintage cookbook and half-heartedly fart around from there.
After I went to bed, though, in the absence of work to worry about, I started to feel very concerned about my meal planning for the next two days, and how I was going to balance leftovers and cooking if I'll be eating out every meal on Wednesday and Thursday. This was not good at all, so I searched the depths of the Google Play Store and downloaded an anime girl dress-up auto-runner, Slash & Girl. It's fine, with some awkward voice acting and baffling currency systems, but it controlled well and succeeded in helping me shut my brain off.
During the day, I also did quite a bit of grinding for coins in Pikmin Bloom, but despite the good exercise, I'm still not very close to my hydrangea goal. I'll likely keep up with this today, but I'm not sure I'll bother to say much about it again tomorrow.
I also got in my run of Sonic Dash, with my biggest obstacle now being figuring out how to safely pass other drivers. Once I get that, I think I'll be able to come in first in the Green Chaos GP.
I don't know what I'll do today, but I'm sure it'll be fine.
June 25th, 2023
Yesterday, I let the burden of my catchup work weigh me down, even though it's honestly not very bad. I didn't finish it, nor did I let myself have much fun doing crafts or playing games, either. The day wasn't a loss- I made some delicious pork chops in mushroom soup with roasted garlic for dinner, and watched a very entertaining old Sherlock Holmes movie- but I'm kind of frustrated with myself and am hoping to do better today.
Sonic Drift was definitely my main procrastination tool yesterday, and I'm satisfied to be getting a little better at it with every run. On Friday night, I was swearing because I didn't understand how to stay on the track, and while I'm still doing that to some small extent, I'm coming in second in the green Chaos GP pretty regularly now. I definitely want to do at least one more run today.
I played a lot of Pikmin Bloom between rainy spots yesterday, too, trying to make headway in the chess piece Pikmin event. I hit a roadblock that I ran into during the last event, too, though- the requirement to plant a certain amount of hydrangeas. Hydrangea flowers are in super short supply in the game right now, and I don't have awesome access to big flowers on foot, so getting the petals to succeed at this feels very pay-to-win.
Since I do Google Opinion Rewards to fund my mobile game nonsense, I could spend a couple dollars on this game, and have done so before! In the past, though, I've just done it for stuff I thought seemed cute or fun, like Pikmin storage or Mii outfits here and there. With the hydrangeas, I feel like the game is trying to force me to spend, so I'm digging my heels in and refusing despite having the available funds. Instead, I'm grinding out flower planting to *earn* coins and killing mushrooms right and left in the hopes that I'll get a few petals as a reward. Of course it's not reasonable, but I think it fits the "get walking and do your best" spirit of the game better than tossing money at the problem would.
I messed with Soul Calibur 6 a bit more while I was on a voice chat, too. Mostly, I was messing with the character creation and feeling distressed at the number of dreadfully uncomfortable looking boob armors in the game, but I did a bit of fighting, too. My approach to this game is extremely inefficient in a fun way.
There's still a little bit of work to do today, but I am going to do my best to get it done and not let that bother me. Today will be a good day.
June 24th, 2023
Even though I am on a current "clear 10 games before you buy any more" run, I preordered Sonic Origins Plus before setting that goal, and my copy of it arrived yesterday. Because of that, instead of doing my pre-break catchup work immediately, I played some Game Gear games, like a responsible adult. My first victim was Sonic Labyrinth, which I didn't really give a fair chance. Trying to figure out why I was either hitting or not hitting the first boss was too much effort for the level of brainpower I had going last night.
I was equally dingbatty trying Sonic Drift where the controls frustrated me until I reached the third race and it dawned upon me that my little hedgehog was shooting off the track at every turn because, as the title subtlely implies, I needed to be drifting around the corners. Once I figured that out, I still sucked at this game, but in a way where I think I can improve. I'm hoping to play this a bit more today.
Lastly, I hit a few sidequests in Libra of Soul mode in Soul Calibur 6. I picked this up just to mess with briefly before the new Sonic game showed up, but I'm actually really enjoying it. If I weren't on a game buying freeze, I don't think I would have gotten back into it, so I maybe need to prevent myself from shopping more often.
Even though I do have a bit of work left to do, I'm counting myself as on break now, and am hoping to relax and enjoy some games as part of that. I'd like to clear at least one, and have a candidate that might suffice just during transportation wait times next week. Other than that, though, I'm not going to stress myself out over any hobby stuff. It's not what time off is for.
June 23rd, 2023
My tiredness was insurmountable by the time I got to games last night, so I did one fight in the Soul Chronicles mode of Soul Calibur 6. It was fun to play as Seung Mi-Na, since she was my main back when I played the series more, but I just went to bed after that first battle. My break starts tomorrow, minus any catchup I might have to play, so I'll enjoy things more then.
June 22nd, 2023
Yesterday, I decided to request an extension on my upcoming break, which somewhat surprisingly worked. I now have only two work days left until my break, which'll give me 11 (or ten, if I need to do catchup work) days off straight. I can do this!
Last night, though, was just more PowerWash Simulator to unwind a bit. I cleaned the mayor's golf cart, to see if I could get any extra info on the missing cat subplot, and then went back for another 10% of the playground, getting me to the halfway point on that stage. This is a nice game.
June 21st, 2023
I do not want to be awake today any at all, so I am doing a quick post today. Luckily, I only played PowerWash Simulator last night out of tiredness, hitting around 40% of the playground finished.
I've made it down to one work week until I have a week off! It can't come soon enough.
June 20th, 2023
Last night, I only ended up having a small-ish amount of time to play games, so I did a few more battles in Soul Calibur 6. I'm treating the Libra of Soul mode, where I get to mess with character creation, more like a toy than a linear game so far, but I don't think that matters. I got this game on an extremely deep Playstation Store sale a couple years ago, so it doesn't matter at all how I get my money's worth out of it. I might try the Soul Chronicle mode in the next couple days, though, where you play through the story for the in-game characters.
I'm down to six work days remaining until my vacation! I have a small pit to dig myself out of, backlogged work-wise, but that should be okay.
June 19th, 2023
I had trouble getting up and going this morning, so this'll be a super quick post. I enjoyed a bit of exploring and battling in Dragon Quest X Offline.
I also, very practically, made another create a character in Soul Calibur 6. Tracksuits were all the rage in the 16th century.
Seven work days are left until my vacation.
June 18th, 2023
I'm doing my Sunday morning post right now with a very scattered brain. Since getting this started, I've done some online shopping, paid my internet bill, and bandaged a (very minor!) foot injury. It's not unproductive, but it doesn't reflect great focus, either.
Yesterday was an excellent games day, though! Right after posting here, I sat down for a couple hours to clear Sonic Colors Ultimate. On my post comments a few days ago, fellow Neocities webmaster Anonicus had mentioned the game having some glitches. Reading that, I was somewhat disappointed that I hadn't really seen many glitches. The other night, though, when I was fighting the final boss for the Asteroid Coaster world, one of the boss's attacks would fill Sonic's path up with asteroids, all of which were unavoidable and lodged into the ground. I quit while I was trying to deal with that, mildly infuriated and sure that the boss battle was an impossible task.
That, of course, was a glitch, and when I turned it on Saturday morning, the asteroids were up in the air where they belonged, perfectly avoidable. The final stretch of this game was actually really fun, with a very satisfying Eggman boss, and extremely, comically long end credits. The game even gave me a trophy for getting through the credits! All that being said, I don't really intend to go back and 100% this. It was uneven, and I just have other stuff I'd rather play. I liked it way better than I expected I would from my first couple play sessions, though, and that's nice!
Plus, now I've got a game clear on the board for my "clear 10 games goal" I started about a month ago! I preordered Sonic Origins Plus way before setting this goal, and it'll supposedly show up at the end of next week, so I'm wondering if I'll be able to add any Game Gear games to that total.
My other big goal cleared yesterday was getting through the conversation I was stuck in over in Dragon Quest X Offline! Once I finished that, I saved my game and hit some random battles, finally reaching the good stuff. By good stuff, of course, I mean skill trees. I'm looking forward to playing this more today, even if I'll largely just be aimlessly messsing around.
Way later, I also decided that I wanted to pick up another PS4 game to clear and landed on Soul Calibur VI, the normal choice for 2023. I had a file started from before I started this site, but it had been so long since I played that I decided to just start from scratch. Here, I figure that I'll count this as a clear if I beat both the standard and create-a-character story modes, the latter of which I was playing with last night.
I also built another Gunpla yesterday, this time tackling a Uniqlo branded RX-78 that I got free with a couple of T-shirt. I don't think I'd ever built a proper HG Gunpla before, so I had to go over to the craft store and get an X-acto knife to clear some of the pesky plastic nubs that kept it from snapping together properly. While working on this, I definitely gained good EXP.
Today, I hope to be only slightly less useless than I was yesterday, and wish all of you lovely Sundays (or Mondays, depending on your time zone), too.
June 17th, 2023
It's so nice that it's the weekend! I'm not very ambitious today, but I did start a non-games page today, to post some of my poorly built Gunpla and models from other franchises. Right now, I'm trying to build through the stash of cheap kits I've gathered, so yesterday I started things off easy with a cute little Justi'gGuy, as I love the little bears. The eyes and nose are painted on, so I got the colors I wanted, but the rest is just stickers.
In actual games, I played another two levels of Sonic Colors Ultimate last night, leaving me at a boss that was pretty infuriating. After I'm done posting today, I'm probably going to turn on my PS4 to hurl profanity at little Sonic again, as it is obviously the character's fault that I am bad at the game.
I also gave the conversation I'm stuck in over in Dragon Quest X Offline another go. I made progress, but was a little too tired at the end of the workweek for kanji study, so I didn't finish. Hopefully, I'll get this over with today or tomorrow!
June 16th, 2023
This has not been my most variety-filled gaming month, looking at my images folder, but I think I'm in the home stretch for a basic clear of Sonic Colors Ultimate. I played two more levels last night, with one being fun and the other being a strange, tedious, running in circles and knocking things over affair. The quality difference between the two seemed decently representative of the game as a whole.
I also cleaned another 5% of the playground in PowerWash Simulator, which felt like decent progress for as late as I got going.
Only 8 work days remain until I get my little break!
June 15th, 2023
Yesterday was no good, so I'm really tired today. I wish I could stay cheerful better after a bad day! Things are ok externally, though, and I'm down to nine work days until my little break, so I'll be fine.
I actually made a decent amount of progress in Sonic Colors Ultimate last night and am close to the end of the game. A couple of the levels I played were stunningly anticlimatic, including a boss that was way too easy and a platforming level that took less than a minute to get through. It's fine, though. It wasn't unpleasant to play, and it's good to be in the home stretch.
In PowerWash Simulator, I knocked out another 10% on the playground, getting it to 20% clean. It was relaxing.
June 14th, 2023
My stress levels are sky high this morning, so I might take a walk and try to relax a bit after posting here. Ten work days are left until my break!
Last night, I ended up on Grimacesbirthday.com, feeling that it was amusing and slightly surreal that McDonalds had commissioned a tweets 'n' memes Game Boy Color game to promote a milkshake. I played a couple levels of Grimace's Birthday, but was having trouble finding the best way to play it. The banner ads on the sides made it a little laggy on my cheapo PC, and it crashed during level two on my iPad. I'll probably give it another go and see if I can clear the whole thing, though. It's not really great- it's a licensed Game Boy Color platformer with slippery controls- but it is somewhat interesting.
I played PowerWash Simulator for a few minutes, too, with the goal of hitting 10% clean on the playground level. I got there and went to bed.
June 13th, 2023
Last night, I just played two or three levels of Sonic Colors Ultimate. I genuinely do not remember how many I played, but it was fine. This isn't a bad game, but I have no strong feelings about it, so it's hard to get a longer play session going. Still, I think I'm getting relatively close to the end.
Only 11 work days remain until I can take a week long break!
June 12th, 2023
I've only got 12 work days left before I get to take a small break. Doing a countdown like this is maybe a little childish, but it's helpful, too.
My focus was bad yesterday, so I didn't play anything so well. I finished Aquarium World in Sonic Colors Ultimate, though in my first play session, I got frustrated with the boss and swore never to play it again. A few hours later, I was feeling somewhat calmer and took it out pretty quickly from there.
I'd been looking forward to actually getting into playing Dragon Quest X Offline, but spoke to who I was supposed to and got locked in another cutscene. I read through a lot of it, but since I didn't feel very well, I got overwhelmed and quit for the day. Maybe I'll try to tackle it again tonight, if today ends up being doable.
I did play a bit of Disney Tsum Tsum again, too, but without getting any great scores or accomplishing anything. It's a good weekend game in that regard.
June 11th, 2023
It took me a while to build up to posting here today, but I've made it! I've done some other writing, cleaning, and crafts so far today, but for some reason, posting here seemed more daunting than those activities, but somehow less daunting than tossing together some quick pickled bean sprouts for a work lunch side dish. My brain is a mystery even to itself.
Yesterday I did play a lot of games, with Eastern Exorcist being what I spent the most time with. The short quests and constant ability to level up keep me playing for way longer sessions than I intend, so I deliberately didn't play this as much as I wanted after work last week. My fascination with it is not conducive to getting to bed on time. As far as things go, though, I'm getting close to the end of my first character playthough. Even though there's only two characters, I'm curious to see how different the story is for each.
Sticking with the XBox, I got the garden in PowerWash Simulator 100% clean and decided to take care of the playground next. Bright colors and shiny surfaces make it very satisfying.
In Dragon Quest X Offline, I also finished the cutscene I was trapped in and am ready to tackle some real gameplay! I'm mildly excited to finally get into the meat of the game, even though that won't cut back on the study side of it too much.
Last and also kind of least, I played Disney Tsum Tsum for a bit, too. I'm not pursuing anything in particular from the gacha or trying to finish the event for the month, so I was just kind of using it to kill time. It was satisfying in that regard.
I don't feel like my writing is very coherent today, so I'm going to go dump some citrus quick pickling liquid on some veggies and stay awake. It's perfect for a Sunday.
June 10th, 2023
I'm glad it's Saturday, but I'm so itchy this morning! I took some non-drowsy allergy medicine which I'm hoping kicks in soon, but it is having a big effect on my ability to sit still and focus. Oh, well! I'm not getting graded or QA'd on the coherence of my Neocities posts.
As I've been doing lately, I sat down for two levels of Sonic Colors Ultimate again last night. I got mildly infuriated by the controls while trying to do some platforming and extremely infuriated by a midboss I was a little too tired to beat smartly, depending instead on persistence and luck. Aquarium World is very pretty, though, and I love the background jellyfish.
After shutting Sonic off for my own sanity, I played PowerWash Simulator for a few minutes, but got really nasty motion sickness and went to bed pretty fast from there. This game hadn't made me sick before, so I think it was just tiredness. The garden is still not completely clean.
What I end up doing today will depend largely on the effectiveness of over the counter allergy meds against pollen induced itching, but I'll play something!
June 9th, 2023
Today, I'm continuing with the story of my massively meandering playthrough of Sonic Colors Ultimate. I played some of the stripped down platforming levels in Game World last night, but then found out that I would have to find every red ring in the game to unlock all of the Game World levels. Dismissive as it sounds, I don't really like this game enough to tackle a 100% playthrough right now, so I'm probably going to leave this section aside and continue going for a basic game clear.
June 8th, 2023
Speed post today, as I'm still having trouble willingly crawling out of bed. I played two more levels of Sonic Colors Ultimate last night. Aquarium World is pretty, but they both felt abbreviated, and not super interesting. This'll be an easy finish, but I don't know how memorable it'll be.
June 7th, 2023
It was still hard to get out of bed this morning, but since I'm just taking a frozen meal for my work lunch today, it matters a little less. My sleep was really poor, though, so I'm hoping for a merciful day.
I didn't finish cleaning the garden in PowerWash Simulator last night, but I did a smaller level, where I cleaned a motorbike.
In Dragon Quest X Offline, I tackled about 12 or 13 more text boxes, but since I'm in an "introduce some characters and the world" style cutscene, it seems like it could still stretch on for a while after last night's reading session, too. Language learning sometimes sucks.
June 6th, 2023
Today's post is late just because I was having trouble getting out of bed this morning. I think I could have made a post in the time I had, but I decided to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my office lunch instead. It was a good choice; today's lunch was particularly satisfying.
Last night wasn't a lot games-wise. I read through 12 or so text boxes in Dragon Quest X Offline, which was better progress than it might sound like.
I played Eastern Exorcist for a bit over an hour, though, only quitting because I felt like I needed to force myself to go to bed. I couldn't sleep well, so clearly, this was my loss. The episodic structure and getting boss fights doled out every few minutes makes it a bit harder to put down than I expected, so it was easy to sit down for "just a few minutes" and play for over an hour. Needing a few different sorts of items to pick up and level abilities gives it a bit of a mobile game-y feel, even though it's not pay to win in the slightest. That's not a complaint, though, so much as it just seems slightly interesting.
I'm still super sleepy, so I don't know if I'll make it much of anywhere in any games tonight. That's okay, though.
June 5th, 2023
I'm not feeling well today, so I was in bed too long and now am up, technically dressed, and trying to get myself to drink some tea while I post here.
I went through a little more text in Dragon Quest X, but forgot to get a screenshot because I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. I'm in another run of text boxes, so it wouldn't have been very exciting, anyway.
On my PS4, I ended up playing a few more stages of Sonic Colors Ultimate, where I'm getting more in the groove of it. The controls maybe feel a bit off to me in spots. Sonic is so small on the massive screen at points that it's hard to double jump to another platform, since the game reads me as close enough to be autotargeting and attacking enemies instead. Mostly, I had fun, though. I hit some interesting platforming and a good boss fight, so I'm a bit less down on this than I was before.
I played some more of Eastern Exorcist a bit later, too, but forgot how to parry from yesterday and wasn't doing as well as I might have liked.
Today, I'll probably do my best to find something easy to play so I don't just sleep. Just sleeping does have a certain appeal, but I want to keep some sort of structure so I can get back into things well and not fall behind tomorrow.
June 4th, 2023
Yesterday stayed extremely challenging until about mid-afternoon, when I started to feel somewhat less wiped out. I'm still feeling okay today, which is also nice!
It was a bit of a weird day for me yesterday games-wise. I did some Dragon Quest X Offline adjacent stuff, with screenshots and vocab drilling, but didn't actually play the game. I also did the classic "turn on my PS4 without actually playing it" move, which has been big for me the past few days.
I did, however, get started with Eastern Exorcist, a 2D action RPG I'd downloaded on Game Pass a couple weeks ago. So far, it feels good to play, and the structure, which at least so far has pretty speedy quests, gives it a good "oh, I'll just do one more thing before I shut it off" feeling. Plus, the 2D graphics are very spiffy. Since I just started this, I'm sure it'll be a case where I have more to say later.
I played a bit more of PowerWash Simulator, too, and am at about 80% clean in the initial garden. If I play this more today, I hope I can get this level knocked out and see what's next.
June 3rd, 2023
I've been having a challenge morning today! My goals so far have been to go to Dollar General, wash some dishes, take out the trash, and change out my scented wax melt. (Today, my apartment's scent is peach vanilla.) I got all of this done, but put myself back to bed several times doing so, and now feel the call of not-sitting-upright-any-longer as I sit and manage my page.
Last night, I was not doing much better. I sat down to play Sonic, or something on my XBox, but after everything this week, my muscles were too sore and I felt too tired to even sit up, so I went to bed really early, played about ten minutes of Disney Tsum Tsum, and went to sleep.
Hopefully, I'll get more of a will to be awake as today goes on.
June 2nd, 2023
My energy level has been dead at zero after work this week, so it's been hard for me to do a ton, games included. I did play PowerWash Simulator a bit more last night, though, and still found it very relaxing. I'm at about 30% of the first garden cleaned now. Today, I'm hoping for a less relentless day so I can enjoy my time off the clock slightly more, but whatever happens, happens.
June 1st, 2023
It's a new month and a new day! I don't really have any gaming goals for June, save that I'd like to clear at least two to three games, big or small. I didn't clear any in May, and felt somewhat blah about it. I can definitely do it, though.
Last night, I tried PowerWash Simulator through Game Pass, since one of my coworkers recommended it when I was voicing my distress about the imminent loss of Lawn Mowing Simulator. It worked well enough. I got sleepy within 30 or so minutes, shut the machine off, went to bed, and was asleep pretty fast from there. Plus, I like that this one seems to let you save the game mid-level. I am appreciative of "games that literally put you to sleep" being a thing.
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