What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Honkai Star Rail (Android)

September 15th, 2024

Last week, I was really feeling overwhelmed and under the weather, so I didn't finish my craft goals for the week. I made a run at clearing them yesterday, but decided it wasn't worth stressing myself out so much. I'll try again for next week, though!

I did play a lot of video games yesterday, though. I was in the mood to play something really dumb, so I started Oneechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, on my XBox. I'd gotten this super cheap in a sale, and so far, it is very ridiculous and very satisfying. It bothers me that Aya, my zombie stabber, is wearing a boa into zones where zombies are on fire. It seems like a really unnecessary safety risk! I'm having a great time so far, though, and looking forward to more mindless slashing.

I also spent a lot of time in Wixoss Multiverse, where I'm trying to rebuild bits of my party. I am often losing matches due to being set on fire, so I have decided that rather than finding a way to guard against this, I just need all the girls on my team also setting my opponents on fire. Honestly, it's not going stunningly well so far, and at the moment, I feel I am grinding to make things slightly worse for myself. If this fails, though, I'll just think about other setups.

Before bed, I turned on Honkai Star Rail for the first time in a while, and promptly got lit on fire there, too. My RPG girls look very stylish, but they're way too flammable! For now, though, I have a new character I gacha'd that I want to level up, so I went back to try the Simulated Universe subquest to see if I could gather any materials there. After the boss set me on fire until I died, though, I shut the game off and went to sleep. I'll see what I can do about that today.

I did a daily workout in Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, too. No one was on fire in this game and honestly that's a little lame.

July 8th, 2024

Today, I am trying to stay cheerful and optimistic that a good week is ahead.

Yesterday, I definitely spent the most game time on Honkai Star Rail, even if I played for a bit less than an hour. I liked seeing how retrofuturistic a lot of the interior design on the train itself is and went to a very story heavy ice planet for my next set of quests. In fact, I got caught up in some story events that made it hard to quit right when I wanted to, but that's just how JRPGs go. Even a gacha game can fall prey to the curse of cutscenes!

I tried the last of the gacha games I downloaded while getting my new tablet, too, The Tale of Food. I don't know a lot about Chinese folklore, so I'm interested in that part of the story in and of itself. It seems fine other than that, too, and like progressing without spending might not be too bad here. Now that I've started all three of the new-ish gatcha games I downloaded, my next goal is going to be getting to a spot where I can spend out my energy in one play session in all of them, rather than having it topped up with constant levelling bonuses.

I played Samba de Amigo: Party Central as my workout game again, too, and really did wear myself out again. The "story mode" missions are fun, but I played too long and really wore out my arms. I might do something with a more traditional workout structure tonight.

July 6th, 2024

Help, I am panicking today! My only task for a dinner tonight is to cut a lot of vegetables, but my hands are shaking too much to cut vegetables! It is not an enjoyable feeling!

Games are ok, though! I am still slogging along in Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, despite not really enjoying it, because the end of each 10 minute level has a cute setpiece like Tuxedo Mask spinning around in an office chair that keeps me playing. I think I'm halfway through now, and I might try to buckle down and get this game over with today.

Nothing else was that special from there, I got off the space station in Honkai Star Rail, but maybe should have stayed longer to do some sidequests.

I did a light daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2, too, since I felt kind of exhausted and didn't want to do more than that. It was fine, but I was tired enough that it felt really tedious.

I kept going in Assault Lily Last Bullet W, too, still feeling weirdly entranced by something being tied into source material I barely know. Gatcha-ing screen shots from a TV anime next to the more bespoke fancy illustrations is kind of charming.

Lastly, I played some more SNK All-Star Brawl before bed, trying to come to terms with this game's wild number of systems. It's not enough to make me quit, but there might be too much to this game.

My current interest level in being awake and continuing with today is zero, but it is difficult to get off the path now. Coffee's not gonna make my hand shaking worse, so I'll get caffinated and do my best.

July 5th, 2024

I played a lot of games yesterday, so I'll get right into it here. Currently, I'm working towards clearing Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, an arcade beat-em-up, on my Miyoo Mini+. I'm just playing this because I saw it browsing through the arcade emulators and like Sailor Moon, so there's nothing significant about this choice. In the first two levels, though, it's a clunky feeling game where enemies do unnecessary damage, although it is one with beautiful sprite art. I'll keep going with it today.

I beat my first big boss in Honkai Star Rail, too, and was kind of impressed by how nice and setpiece-y the whole thing was. If I wasn't worried about being at least mildly productive, I would have kept going in this, but it seemed to be introducing a new mode that seemed like it could be relatively in depth, so I ditched for the day.

From there, I wanted to mix things up for my workout game of the day, so I went back to Fitness Circuit, which I hadn't played in months. It completely destroyed me, but as I stood before my TV, dripping in sweat, it told me I could have a new outfit for my trainers as a special gift. That made it all okay.

The rest of my gaming for today was just in standard mobile games. I thought it would be interesting to pick some gacha games to document here when I got my new tablet this week, and one of my choices on that front was Assault Lily Last Bullet W. I didn't really think it would be good, but I was kind of fascinated by the idea of launching a mobile game for a one cour anime that aired years ago in a competitive marketplace. It was even messier than I thought it would be. Downloading the game resources took over an hour of starting and stopping, and once I got in, the amount of login bonuses it handed out was totally overwhelming. There's way too many events going on here at once! I shall embrace the chaos.

I also plugged along in SNK All-Star Brawl, but got too distracted by some new mini-games that unlocked as part of the story mode to get much further in the story mode. I only have a very simple take on darts so far, but it looks like more minigames will unlock as I level up. It makes as much sense as anything, and it's a cute little side mode.

Bribing myself to do things with video game access went well yesterday, so I'll probably do the same today. It leads to longer posts, but on the weekend, that's fine.

July 4th, 2024

Happy 4th of July, other Americans reading this on the fourth, and a very nice Thursday to everyone else! I'm posting a little late today, but it's because I went to eat Indian food and go see a movie with my mom. We're supposed to have storms where I am tonight, so I'm not doing any big July 4th celebrations.

I am glad to have the energy to do a real post today, though! Last night, I kept going in Honkai Star Rail, which I started because a fellow Neocities webmaster, Gummy, is doing a Stream Elements collab with them for their Twitch. Their Neocities page is here, the Twitch channel is here, and the Honkai Star Rail collab link is here!

I'm liking Honkai Star Rail better than I thought I would so far. Before starting this blog, I tried Genshin Impact, and it left me feeling a little flat. The sci-fi set dressing and turn based battles here are way more to my taste, though, and I'm actually somewhat interested to see where the story goes. I do want to play until I hit level 8, to hit the stream bonus, but I also think I'll keep playing past that, too. I at least want to see if it lets me leave the space station!

In terms of more traditional gacha games, I also played some more of SNK: All-Star Brawl, having used my copious amount of early game pulls to get an interesting team. For games like this, I'll probably only post about them when I do something other than nabbing daily quests and login bonuses. I don't pay into mobile games, so my gacha pulls will be way too boring to fill posts. I did some story mode stuff last night, though, helping Kyo work through his family conflict, so it ended up being post worthy.

I also did my daily workout game session in Fitness Boxing 2, going that route because it seemed low maintenance when I scrolled through my Switch menu. Right now, I'm not really achievement chasing too seriously in this, but if I get through 100 workouts with Karen, my current trainer, that's an achievement in and of itself. Everything is progress!

As far as today goes, my eyes are super puffy and itchy, so I am going to use game access as a way to bribe myself into being even slightly productive. I should have another decent post tomorrow!

July 3rd, 2024

I don't know why I'm doing so badly this week, but at least I have Thursday and Friday off! Anyway, games!

I tried Honkai Star Rail last night. The turn based battles are neat!

My daily workout game was Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star. I fought and defeated another boss, which was satsifying.