What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

ESP Ra.De. PSI (Switch)

April 28th, 2025

It feels like it's been so long since I last posted! Over the weekend, I went to Minneapolis to see Charli XCX, wander around the Mall of America, and see a movie in Screen X, a movie format I think might be more misbegotten than the Virtual Boy. It was all extremely fun, but I was in a hotel with super limited wi-fi, so despite having plenty of time, I couldn't do updates here. I also tend to binge read manga from ebook bundles when I have a lot of time to chill, downloading them one by one, or just watch Youtube, so I was also cut off from that.

I was able to pop in and out of the hotel wifi with limited bandwidth, so I could use Steam, and my Switch ran totally offline. Because of that, it was convenient to just binge play games between events and ventures out for the weekend. Because of that, I dipped into a relatively wild amount of games. I will not post about all of them here, mostly because it seems tedious and I don't want to. I will post about all the games I finished, though, which is still ridiculous!

I'm going in order of enthusiasm here, so I'll start off with G-Mode Archives+: Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi DX tonight! I got my first ever 1 credit clear in a shmup in this right before taking an Uber out to the concert, and spent my ride over text-gloating about my victory to my very kind and patient offline friends, just to get it out of my system before the event. It's still not really out of my system, though! I thought that it was dumb to try and get good at shmups in my late 30s, and that I was just too old and untalented to succeed in this quest. This is a really abbreviated version of Ketsui, and I was playing it in easy mode, but I feel great about this. It has me encouraged to keep pushing up against more games, eventually at higher difficulties, and overall, this has given me a new outlet to bust stress! Writing about old school 2D shooters like this feels silly, but I am really happy.

The next day, I also got a 1 credit clear in ESP Ra.De. Psi's super easy mode, which was even more satisfying! I'd never even seen some of the levels I was buzzing through, and was so close to losing when I defeated the final boss that it was wild. Even though I'll probably put the strange old phone version of Ketsui aside for a while, I'm not going to count this as an easy mode game clear until I've done the same with all four playable characters. It's too cool to quit!

I played a pleasant, low key puzzle game called CATch the Stars, too. It was extremely low on cat content, but I liked the base puzzle style, and figuring out the rules to how stars move as I went. It was cryptic at first, but intuitive enough to be fun. I liked this, and thanks to a bundle, I have the sequel in my backlog, too. I'll probably play it before too long.

Somewhat less actively, I also cleared Buffet Boss out of a need for low-stress background noise while I got other things sorted. It was pretty repetitive, and once I got staff hired and leveled up in each restaurant, most aspects of the game could play themselves. I don't hate this kind of game, though, and have more space in my heart than I should for these strange "numbers go up" 20 cent stick person games. Plus, it was funny to carry 20 buckets of chicken at once. I like that in a game!

From here, I'm going to get into my cat (and other animal) finding quests of the weekend. The best of these, and maybe one of the best I've played in a long time, was Cats in the Ancient City of Gu Su. It had lovely art, multiple stages, some genuinely tricky to find cats, and a charming theme. Despite my love for cat finding games, I wouldn't generally recommend most of these games. This one, I would.

Where Foxes was decent, and as good as most of the other games in its series. There was cute art and some extra items to find, which goes a long way in these things.

100 Romantic Cats was perfectly fine, as far as hidden cat games go. The art was ok, some of the cats were satisfying to find, and it let me shut my brain off for 15 minutes.

Cat Purrtrol: Find All 100! was not one of the better cat hunts I've been on. From the Steam reviews, it looks like I played a violence free edit of the game, which I'm super okay with. When zoomed in, though, I could slide the image off of the screen and delve into a white void, and the music loop had some awkward gaps between songs. One of the hidden cats took me a while to find due to a respectable sneaky trick, so there is good here! It was just a bit messy, too.

My bottom tier cat finding game of the weekend was 100 Aliens Cats. The art seemed sloppy and the cats weren't well hidden. I wasn't impressed.

I'll be back to more normal posting tomorrow! Thanks for your patience with a bit of a longer post tonight!

April 24th, 2025

I could only sleep for a few hours last night, which is making it exceptionally hard to accomplish things today. For example, I typed that sentence and then went to work on an anime music playlist for half an hour. I'm doin' great!

Anyway, as far as games go, I played a few rounds of Luck Be A Landlord before I pulled myself off of it last night, which was fun.

I also played through the first chunk of the segmented super easy mode that awards gacha tickets in ESP Ra.De. Psi. It was also fun, and I unlocked a second psychic teen to dress up.

April 17th, 2025

Today was tiring and stressful. I got off work, ate a big sandwich, and played games while watching Youtube tornado coverage to try to convince myself that I won't die when these storms hit my area overnight. I'll say more about that tomorrow!

Last night, I started my latest go at finishing Super Mario 64, a fun game that gives me killer motion sickness. It's not as bad as it was on a real N64 on Switch, though, so I'm going to see if playing in handheld mode, one or two stars at a time, is doable. If I can get through this puke free, maybe I'll retry Spyro next.

After that, though, I did retreat back to 2D gaming with a couple more tries to 1CC super easy mode in Esp Ra.De. PSI. I got to the boss in stage 3 both times, for two different characters, so I felt good about getting better at this!

April 13th, 2025

I got back to chasing 100 game clears in 100 days yesterday, but wasn't in the mood for finding cute animals. I'd raided some itch.io bundles I had on hand the other day for quick finishes and ended up playing Please, a creepy little walk and push buttons game. This only took about 15 minutes to get through, but it had some decent environmental storytelling and neat looking texture warps all over the place.

I also started and really dug into Ace Angler Fishing Spirits M, the mobile version of a Japanese arcade game about fishing. It's a game with quick levels and a lot of flash, so it adapts well to the mobile format, and if I'm understanding everything correctly, this may be a mobile game with a concrete end, too! I was weak and paid three dollars to remove the post-level ads, but since that would have given me less than 15 minutes of play in an arcade, I don't really regret it. I'm sure all the shiny fish will make for very exciting blogging.

I went back to chasing my one-credit-clear on super easy mode in Esp Ra.De. PSI, too. I wasn't doing well last night, but hadn't played for a while. If I keep at it, I'm sure I'll get my 1CC!

March 23rd, 2025

Yesterday, most of my game time went to Sims 4 again, which was a lot of fun! I'm still working on the time travel storyline, so I got to invite people to the park and abandon them to dig holes, or visit friends and rummage through their couches. I'm still not even at the halfway mark of this event, so I'll probably toss some more hours into it today. It's fun, so I'd like to see it through!

In less fun gaming, I played and "finished" a cat game I'd gotten in a Steam bundle, Slide Stories: Neko's Journey. It was super cute, so I could get through it, but I don't like slide puzzles! I just wanted to get this over with, so I sat down and ran through it on the easiest mode in one sitting. As a hater, it was not my favorite, but if you do like slide puzzles, this is very calm and charming.

I played Esp Ra.De. PSI for a little bit before bed, too. This Switch port has some very nice "learn the game" features, chopping the levels into bits to use for managable practice sessions, so I messed with those and made a couple super easy arcade mode runs last night. It was nothing special, but I want to eventually clear normal mode without spamming credits, so I'm cool with having a slow start.

March 21st, 2025

I didn't get done with things until really late last night, and had to talk myself out of trying Castle of Shikigami at 1:30 in the morning. Instead, I tried Esp Ra.De. PSI, which, in the light of day, seemed to me to be a completely lateral move. I want to get good at shmups so I can enjoy extremely anime arcade style games, and Esp Ra.De., with its flying psychic battle teens, is exactly what I want. I want to start off in this by getting a 1CC, or one credit clear, in super easy mode, which seems very doable. It wasn't doable last night, but I played it until I flat out fell asleep last night and got my first good night worth of sleep all week. This might not be a good long term strategy, but it made today easier.