What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?
February 2025
February 28th, 2025
Today is quite a challenging Friday, so I am posting now as to better collapse later. I finished SNK Gals' Fighter last night, though! The unlockable boss character, Miss X, is just Iori from King of Fighters in a delinquent schoolgirl outfit. The joke isn't as funny to me now as I thought it was in the old days, but that's not a bad thing at all. I don't really like playing as Iori, though, so for me, that perhaps was a bad thing.
After my playthrough, I realized I had never seen the "special" ending before, so I think I may have accidentally had this game as a playthrough in progress for 23 years! There's hope for my other games yet! This was fun, though. It's cheerful and cute, and extremely playable. Maybe it is not the greatest game of all time, as it was in my memories, but it was still a lot of fun
Other than that, I started Skycat last night. As an arcade shooter, the stages are a bit long and the hitbox is confusing. As a game with a cat in it, though, it does have a cat, so I'm stickin' with it. I'll talk more about it when I'm less pressed for time!
February 27th, 2025
I'm getting a lunch break post done today, which is going to be nice later tonight! I actually did play a decent amount of stuff yesterday, though. I did a second playthrough as Shermie in SNK Gals' Fighter, finally getting my last character unlocked. I'll hopefully get this game finished off tonight.
I also tried out some stuff in pursuit of clearing my self-inflicted "finish some of what you've already got, dingbat!" bingo cards. There's spaces on two of them to play something on my Mac, so I tried out Luck Be a Landlord. It was fun, and I liked getting stuff I added to the slot machine to interact properly. The pixel art was really cute, too! Somewhat bizarrely, though, I lost mouse control during my third run. I have no idea why, but it made reading the symbol descriptions kind of a hassle. Hopefully, it's back the next time I play.
It's been a while since I last touched it, but I picked Puzzle Quest back up, too, to see if that might be a good candidate to clear. It's a bit boring, at least in the spot I'm at, so I don't know that I'll keep up with this right now. It's not a bad match-3 at its base, but I wish the battles had a little bit more tension.
February 26th, 2025
I'm posting way too late again, after another day of SNK Gals' Fighter. I cleared the game as Whip last night, which was a lot of fun. I've never been that great at using her, but it's such a joy to be a cheap brat and attack from across the screen, or fly up in the air and land behind my opponent. Having fun in a game is more important than being good at it, so I had a great time playing as her while also racking up my most continues of revisiting this game.
From there, it was time to grind for the last unlockable character, so I did another playthrough as Mai. I breezed through it and felt very powerful, but still didn't get my unlock.
Aside from my fighting game playthroughs, I made myself some video game bingo cards to help myself decide what to play. There's plenty of room on them for fighters and hidden cat games, but maybe it will make me less paralyzed about what to play next. Both cards have 25 spots for games, and one is a bit more genre-focused, while the other is more platform-focused. I'll see how it goes!
February 25th, 2025
It still feels super hard to get it together tonight, but I made it to blogging a bit sooner than I did yesterday! Last night, though, I just did an arcade playthrough of SNK Gals' Fighter. Akari was the last of the standard characters I needed to do a playthrough as in this game, since I'd saved her for last. Her moves are a little goofy, but she's fun to play as! I struggled a bit last night out of sleepiness, but would have as anyone.
I'm almost done with this game, with only two unlockable characters left in arcade mode. I know I got one of them last night, but the other might take a bit of grinding. It's fun, though, so that's fine.
February 24th, 2025
I'm struggling hard to focus and pay attention tonight, but luckily, I was not in gamer-mode yesterday. I did one playthough of Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, in which I played as Jean in his basic outfit. I was so sleepy and zoned out while playing that I don't have much to say about him, even though I was able to face Dural at the end. It was fun, but nothing was clicking with me.
February 23rd, 2025
I spent most of my weekend visiting family in Chicago, eating amazing food, shopping, and learning quite a lot about portable spin-offs of convoluted RPG franchises. It was a lot of fun! When I got home, though, I had to get back to practical life, so I had to make dinner and pay bills before I could get back around to good stuff.
I had my Switch with while I hung out last night, so I did a few arcade playthroughs in Neo Geo Pocket Color games. I started with Shiki in SNK Gals' Fighter, doing so poorly I feared I'd lost my touch! It was tougher than usual for me to get hits in, and I was losing to the computer more often than usual.
For my next playthrough, though, I stuck with SNK Gals' Fighter, switching to Leona. It turned out I just kind of sucked at playing as Shiki, which is fair. I did try to use Shiki quite a lot in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, since I like her character design, so it's not for lack of familiarity. Sometimes characters just don't suit me well, and that is okay. Leona, at any rate, does suit me well, and it's neat that she can explode things.
I also gave SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millenium a try, and had a great time. By playthrough 26, maybe I'll be sick of the little story scenes in arcade mode, but last night, I found them charming. Kyo was a good, solid first choice to play as, too. He's not too fancy or too boring, so I felt like I was getting a good feel for the game. It'll be fun to dive into this a bit more!
February 22nd, 2025
Being awake for an early post is a great challenge, but one I can meet, mostly because it'll be short today. For last night's fighting game arcade mode playthrough, I went back to Ultra Street Fighter IV. I didn't want to take too long, as I needed to get to bed a bit early, so I went with Cammy, one of my best characters. She had a cat costume, which was excellent, and some cats in her opening and ending anime bits, too. The gameplay was fun, too, but I was really zoomed in on the "cat" aspect of things.
February 21st, 2025
I kept up my run of fighting games last night with Girl Fight on XBox. I played this after some jokes with friends, thinking this would be funny, but it's just a standard budget game. It does some interesting things with single player progression so far, but there's only 8 characters and the gameplay isn't that wild or innovative. The graphics on the bikini girls are fine, but that's balanced by no voices or cutscenes. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, but it's not great, either.
Over in less violent pursuits, I finished my little sticker scene. I have questions about the profitablity of a clothing store for copyright safe rainbow ponies, but it makes for a nice tableau nonetheless.
With that done, I started a second one, too, from the same set. It's not very exciting so far, but it's still very relaxing.
February 20th, 2025
Playing fighting games before bed has been somewhat soothing, so last night, I tried Samurai Shodown! 2, for the Neo Geo Pocket. Samurai Shodown is one of my less played SNK franchises, but this was cool. It's a little more methodical than I'm used to, and I felt like in this, managing my distance from the opponent was a bigger deal than I usually treat it as. It had a decent sense of storytelling in the arcade mode, too, at least for a portable game like this. I'm done as Genjuro now, and'll probably come back to it pretty soon.
February 19th, 2025
I went back to SNK Gals' Fighter last night, because it is still remarkably cold and my Switch was the least effort to turn on. Last night's playthrough was with Yuki, the usually non-playable girlfriend of Kyo from King of Fighters. The game plays up her being a normal schoolgirl, so her moves are taking dives at people and hitting them with her schoolbag. Back when I first had this, I remember her feeling difficult to use and somewhat worthless, but I thought she was somewhat unstoppable last night. She could attack effectively without being right up close to her opponent, but isn't a ranged fighter, either, so I thought it was an interesting balance.
February 18th, 2025
Last night, rather than keeping up with One Strike, I ended up booting up Ultra Street Fighter IV, because it was super cold and it seemed helpful to let my Lenovo Legion Go get a little overheated in that situation. My family used to have plain Street Fighter IV on the XBox 360. Even though it wasn't my most played fighter then, I had no trouble jumping back into arcade mode. This game has 44 characters, so using C. Viper, one of my favorites, first will probably cause me consternation as I slog through some of the characters I like less. I'm not familiar with a lot of the roster, though, so it'll be interesting to sort through.
February 17th, 2025
I didn't end up doing much other than crocheting yesterday, which wasn't bad at all. I might post a photo of the amigurumi I've been working on once I've got a couple more done. Lately, I've been making axolotls because they're cute.
As far as games go, I ended up trying a fighting game I'd gotten free on Switch, called One Strike. The gimmick is that whoever takes the first hit loses, with no continues, and it was a pretty fantastic time! I did a playthrough as Kenji, the basic seeming sword guy, as I got a handle on the game. This took longer than it should have, but was very satisfying. Once I actually, uhh, looked at the controls to see I could dash in and out of range, the whole thing clicked for me. I just picked up the DLC to support the devs, since I'd paid nothing for this to start, and am itchy to pick it back up tonight.
February 16th, 2025
I'm in fighting game mode, due to an "art project" I'm playing around with offline, so I will maybe be doing a lot of arcade mode playthroughs in fighters for a bit here.
Last night, I got in a rabbit hole and ended up getting out my Playstation Classic for some Battle Arena Toshinden. The PS Classic uses a PAL version of the game, which was weird, as far as slightly off muscle memory went. I got used to it pretty fast, though, and set the game to one battle matches to scum my way through the arcade mode. Sophia was last night's character, just because I'd used her a lot back in the day, and I got back on board with how screamingly cheap she can be quickly. I did have fun, but I'm not sure this would be playable for anyone without nostalgia for the game. It's a bit janky, and every character is infuriating to fight in their own special way. I still have my Playstation Classic out, though, so I'll probably come back to this before I switch out which mini console I've got plugged in.
I kept up with Monster Hunter Now, too, and do think I might stick with this for a bit. My rewards from a grocery trip were nice enough that I'm excited to see what I pick up on my office days at work.
Last for this post is an update on my silly little sticker scene! I got the store floor just about done, aside from some incredibly small details I realized I'd missed this morning, and hope to finish this today. It's so satisfying to bring the whole thing together!
February 15th, 2025
I didn't play many games yesterday, but I did get a new phone. My old one, which I only had for a few years, if not less, got so loaded down with its own updates that it couldn't even run Google Maps, so I had to upgrade. It was irritating, but a new phone means I get to try new phone games. Last night, I was messing with Monster Hunter Now. It doesn't seem to count steps as a part of its augmented reality stuff, so it wasn't quite what I wanted. The Felyne are really good, though, and I've always wanted to play a Monster Hunter on the grounds of it having cat friends. I'll see how this goes over the next few days!
I'm not good at screenshots on this phone yet, so please pardon the volume controls on the side.
I kept placing, removing, and replacing stickers on my little sticker scene, too, trying to get everything at exactly the right angle. I'm not nearly done with this, since there's so many tiny details to place, and the entire shop floor, too! It's really calming and enjoyable, though. I'm glad I got a multipack of these so I can keep going when this one is done.
February 14th, 2025
Last night, I made blogging complicated for myself by starting Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. I'm interested in game history, so I'd been wanting to play one of these Digital Eclipse interactive documentaries for a while. So far, I feel like it does a nice job of putting the included games in context, and it's so cool to see how video games as a format can pull together multimedia in a cohesive, easy to follow way!
I only got to three of the games in the package last night, since I wanted to spend some time with them. I cleared a run in 3D3D, a disorienting but cool Sinclair ZX81 maze game. (This is the first game for the platform I'd ever played.) It took me a bit of time to get my bearings, since I'm not great with spatial awareness and adding vertical directions messed me up, but it was very satisfying when I finally did. This was simple, but cool
I maybe liked the included ZX81 version of Centipede a bit less, but that's because I used to play ridiculous amounts of more normal versions of Centipede as a kid. To be fair to this, it's pretty good for being based on a screenshot, and I could stick with it long enough to satisfy myself by clearing a wave. Past that, though, I didn't want to mess with it much more, and that's fine.
My last game for the night was Deflex V, a VIC 20 bouncing ball puzzle game. I actually really enjoyed this one, but went to bed before clearing a run. It was decently challenging with fair-feeling logic behind everything, it was somewhat relaxing, and it flashed and yelled weird things at me. I'm looking forward to coming back to this one soon!
That was all my gaming for last night, but tonight, I've been dealing with Friday exhaustion by putting together a little sticker set craft where you furnish an isometric room. I got a set of these just to try them and am starting off with a magical pony fashion shop, due to my mature and sophisticated tastes. I've already done more than is in this photo, since my focus is shot tonight, so I'll update this again tomorrow.
February 13th, 2025
I'm letting the weather and work get the best of me, so I'm a bit stuck in a rut right now. I just played the same two mobile games again last night. In Squad Angels: Bullet Survivor, I cleared one stage while I was half asleep. It was fine.
I spent a lot more time on Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade, draining an event of its useful rewards and getting one of the limited characters from the gacha. It was pretty satisfying.
February 12th, 2025
I'm working from home today due to the snow, even though Wednesday is usually an office day, so I am able to throw together a quick lunch break post! I only played mobile games yesterday, which I'm fine with. The difficulty curve, or total lack of it so far, is bothering me a bit in Squad Angels: Bullet Survivors. It doesn't have that same "breaking through a barrier" feeling even the worst Survivors-like I've played has, but I'm still pretty early on. I won't drop it from my free game rotation quite yet.
I hit a pleasantly overcome-able wall in Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade, so I did some level grinding to see if I could get a 3-star rating in an object collection level I got slightly stuck on. In the end, I was able to do it, but I'm pretty okay with the fact that it took me a little bit to pull it off. Clearing a tough level gives me unfounded confidence. From there, I pressed on with the other stacks of content this game is throwing at me.
February 11th, 2025
There's a winter storm rolling in overnight, and that, combined with general tiredness, has me feeling super overwhelmed for no real reason. Because of that, I'm a spot late to post tonight, but still have an hour to get this done.
I started a couple of new games last night. Before exercising yesterday, I really wanted to play Vampire Survivors, but right now, I'm not buying any games. I went kind of crazy shopping while I was sick and loopy, so I want to clear at least a few before I pick up any new games. Nothing is stopping me from downloading any mobile games, though, so I found an acceptable looking survivors-like called Squad Angels: Bullet Survivor. I don't love some of the character art, but it's exactly good enough to give me something to think about while I'm pedaling away on an exercise bike.
I also tried a Switch hidden object game I had stashed called I Love Finding Cats. That title is true- I do love finding cats, and it is a cut above the little Steam freebies I've been playing. The levels alternate between standard hidden objects, jigsaw puzzles, and spot the difference screens. The cursor controls a little too fast, maybe, but that's fine. This is very decent so far.
Lastly, I kept up my quest to clear all the content available in Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade. I didn't really meet any resistance at any point yesterday, so I plodded merrily along in the events and story mode, along with some of the challenge type stuff.
February 10th, 2025
I am doing a quick lunch break post today because I didn't really play anything exciting yesterday. Himitsu no AiPriL Atsumete! Secret Memories is going to be kind of a grind to unlock everything, I think, but I hammered away at the idol levels and finally unlocked some minigames. There's a school cleaning one that's honestly pretty un-fun, but the baby chick collecting game is at least cute.
I kept playing Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade, too, but didn't really accomplish anything. I had fun, though.
February 9th, 2025
Happy Sunday, everyone! Last night, I spent a lot of time playing Himitsu no AiPri: Atsumete! Secret Memories for the Switch, which is a tie-in game for a kids' anime I've never seen! Actually, I like the overarching series as a whole, and have posted about some of the related PriPara and Pretty Rhythm games here in the past.
This one is way less of a straightforward idol game and has a lot more of a cartoon tie-in feel than those, but I am grateful for the piles of storybook cutscenes. I've got the Japanese reading skills of an American with misguided enthusiasm and no knack for linguistics, so I am playing largely for the text dumps. There are overwhelmingly colorful and poppy idol stages, though, and some mini-games I've yet to unlock, too, so this'll keep me busy for a while! Please look forward to getting tired of reading about this game.
In games I've got less to say about, I finished off Tiny Treasure Hunt while I exercised yesterday. It was a perfectly pleasant way to spend 40 minutes, and since I've got the sequel in my stash, I'll probably play that soon, too.
I also got way back into Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade. I'd only intended to do some event catch-up, but ended up playing for hours yesterday, running through side modes, laying waste to the boss battle event, and doing an unhinged amount of party optimization. I also keep pulling Megumi's basic SSR, so I guess I'll make him one of my lead attackers. I feel very tough for a free player in this!
February 8th, 2025
I've been having a very laid back day, which is really nice after the week I had! I'm gonna go buy a sub for dinner and, hopefully, play some unlocalized Switch games tonight. It's nice stuff to look forward to.
My nervousness was sky high last night, so my gaming was pretty low key. While I exercised, I played a little bit of a very basic hidden object game called Tiny Treasure Hunt. MASK, who is listed as the publisher for this on the Switch eShop, hasn't ever really blown me away gameplay-wise, but their games are really cute and charming! They take less than an hour to beat and lack challenge, but they have lovely pastels and good vibes. That's all I want sometimes. Anyway, I played 15 out of 20 of stages of this last night, and plan to clear it tonight. It'll be nice!
I kept on with Fit My Cat, too, but hit some levels with missing cats! For the first of them, I saw that a puzzle would be unsolvable without any single square cats, which are featured at the margins of the blurry screenshot below, but none were on the board! I, being reasonable and cool-headed, looked up a solution online to make sure I wasn't just being dumb, and I was not- the solutions online showed those single square cats. At that point, I thought my cat sorting quest had been brought to an early end, so I matched my own cats to the diagram, sure it would just stop forever once I failed to place the last two tiny cats. On Switch, though, it just called the puzzle finished with those two squares left empty!
It's fine, and I'm glad the game works, but also I hate it because it feels dumb to me that those single square cats are just missing! It makes the puzzles feel unfinished, and it happened again over the next few levels, too. I know this is what I get for buying Switch cheapies, but obviously, there's a version of this that works properly somewhere. I demand a patch!
Anyway, that's all for me tonight. I have run out of rage at my cat sorting game and am ready to get on with my evening. Have a good weekend out there, everyone!
February 7th, 2025
I'm posting through my weekly Friday night crash, though I'm even sleepier than usual tonight! Be careful of norovirus, guys, it's no joke!
Last night, I got back to my exercise bike, and tried Stray Cat Doors on my Switch as I pedaled. It's a bad game for fitness time, since I had to take a few notes and think through more than I'd expected, but I like it so far overall. It's very quiet and dreamlike, and the puzzles were decent, too. Some of them took me a few minutes, but I still got an "ah-ha!" moment out of a lot of them without using hints. I'm looking forward to playing the second half of this soon.
Way later, I played Fit My Cat for a few rounds. I'd been a little stuck on a puzzle, and it took me a bit to get it figured out last night, too. After that one, though, the other puzzles I did were pretty breezy. It was either a weird mental block on my part or uneven difficulty on the game's.
February 6th, 2025
I half-heartedly played some normal games last night. I installed Sims 4 onto my Legion Go and threw together a random Sim to do some quick play. It wasn't very exciting, and I kind of want to optimize my control setup for this a bit this weekend. Plus, I missed playing as my own default disaster Sim! Still, having this ready to go on a portable system holds much promise.
After I was done with Sims 4, I tried Dragon Cliff, a very casual seeming idle RPG I'd snapped up for two dollars on Steam. The text felt a bit "off," but it had an interesting, if not slightly unintuitive, start. I might play this some more before bed tonight.
February 5th, 2025
I went back to work after norovirus today and completely zoned out immediately after. I got it together enough to post now, but luckily, I only played a little bit of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete to wind down last night. My head was pounding, and pretend fishing helped.
February 4th, 2025
Thank you for the well-wishes yesterday! I was really sick from norovirus, so I had to skip posting here for the first time since starting this blog. I wasn't able to play much yesterday, since I barely had enough energy to pick up my tablet. On the 3rd, though, which is sadly booted from my historical record, I started a new mobile game, Limbus Company, and played three stages of that before going to sleep for 14 hours.
I still don't have a ton of energy, but I'm glad I can post again today.
February 2nd, 2025
Today is a low intensity day, which is nice. So was yesterday! I only played mobile games again, but spent the most time in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete. I kept running through tiny February events, racking up resources in amounts I'm not sure I can use, and dressing up in cute outfits. It's nice to get stuff done without worrying about microtransactions.
Before I fell asleep, I did some really awful play in Dragon Wings, too. I unlocked a new dragon girl, and was able to get quite a lot of the Valentine's event cookies, but just kind of got exploded over and over. Sometimes, that's just how it goes.
I played Galaxiga again, too, but it was even more merciless about ad watching and item buys than I expected, even folding them into daily and newbie quests. That's fine, but it's not for me, so this game got booted off of my tablet.
February 1st, 2025
It's a late post tonight, but I'm excited to get February off to a good start! More than any game goals, I'd like to read 28 manga/manhwa/graphic novels this month, but I am going to keep playing stuff! I cleared 10 games last month, and would be happy to continue plowing through bargain games next month.
I only really spent any time with mobile shmups last night. I started a new one, Galaxiga, which was an okay time waster. The pixel art is nice, but it really focuses on having you level up your ships and drones. I don't really mind that, but kind of expect the level up requirements to get unreasonable fast.
I kept up with the Valentine's event in Dragon Wings, too, and am still having fun. I did pretty well in the game's league mode yesterday, too, but honestly don't think there are that many other players.
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