What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Mahjong Story 2 (Android)

December 21st, 2022

There's a winter storm starting tonight, which I'll have to drive home from my office day in, so I feel super nervous today. My focus is busted. I felt pretty worried about it last night, too, so I just played Mahjong Story 2 to distract myself from it enough to get to sleep. After I make it home safe tonight, Thursday is work from home, so I just need to make it through today!

December 1st, 2022

It's the start of a new month today! For November, I didn't have many cleared games- just Sonic the Hedgehog and Serre, which is fine. I don't have many solid goals for December, but I'd like to see if I can clear Kandagawa Jet Girls this month.

Yesterday was pretty good, but even though I spent most of the day just in a car, I was pretty tired by the end of it. I'm not really enjoying Sonic Frontiers at all, so I ended up just doing the daily missions Mahjong Story 2 spit out at me and going to sleep.

November 14th, 2022

I'm doing a quick post before work, after being too apprehensive about work to drag myself out of bed. I played Wild Arms more last night, but rather than moving things forward, just fought random monsters to get the gold I needed to get the next item up for everyone's weapons and armor, having hit a new town. The ARM weapon, the main character Rudy's gun that he uses in lieu of magic, has a pretty steep upgrade cost, but I wanted to improve it a bit before tackling the next dungeon. This wasn't exciting, but in a JRPG, it happens.

I also halfheartedly cleared a set of daily challenges in Mahjong Story 2, as I wasn't quite ready to go to bed after shutting Wild Arms off. It was fine.

November 12th, 2022

Last night was really bad for focusing again, so I'm hoping to play Wild Arms a bit more today. This is a small and achievable dream.

I did have fun last night, though. With my Switch out for other stuff, I decided to get out Pokken Tournament DX, the first game I bought for my Switch. When I got it, I was living in Japan and they were still super hard to find, so I banked some cash and kept checking different stores until, right before a teacher's holiday party, they had one at the entertainment store on the way to the restaurant! I sat through the whole drinking party with a Switch sticking out of my tote bag, and my mentor teacher was super stressed out that I'd get mugged biking home with it. I did not share this risk assessment, and, luckily, I made it home safely, bones and Nintendo Switch intact.

Anyway, Pokken Tournament is fine. I'd like to beat the league mode in it, but last night, just did the daily challenge and a quick battle.

In Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix, I played three songs and bought a couple of accessories as prizes. It was pretty riveting stuff.

Then, even more thrillingly, I played Mahjong Story 2, which is false advertising, as this game certainly does not have a story. It was fine, though. It's a very tolerable game to plod through when I'm half asleep.

November 9th, 2022

Yesterday was not chill, and work was stressful. I did a lot of wall staring last night. Today seems ripe for drama, too, so I grabbed some origami star folding paper and put it by my desk in advance.

Games were okay last night, though. I spent most of my game time, again, on Wild Arms, going through a mountain pass that served as a small, transitional, semi-dungeon. There was a little cutscene where one of my party members got the idea for a new attack, which I could then use in battle, and that was an interesting seeming mechanic. I also feel like I missed something on the mountain pass, because in the previous town, NPCs kept saying the bandits up there had stolen a magic map, which sure would be helpful on any journey, hint-hint. The path seemed so straightforward that the bandits could very well be somewhere else, though, so I'll see how things unfold.

I didn't want to go another save point worth of play once I reached the town, so from there, I played some simple puzzle games. I got out my Genesis Mini 2 and played one of the previously unreleased games on it, Star Mobile. It's not awful, but the thought occurred to me more than once that it was probably previously unreleased because it's not that good, either. In it, you put stars of varying weights on scales, trying to keep them balanced while also clearing colors off the scales- a mechanic that also alters the weights you've set up. I think I can get good at it and'll almost definitely try again, but it's a bit clunky.

After that, I grabbed my phone and played Mahjong Story 2, one of the Galaxy Store quick play games. Aside from my existential despair that I missed the emotional journey of the first game in the series, leaving me unable to understand the heart of why the game's title screen girl is compelled to match tiles, I'm fine with this. It's overly monetized and'll probably be never ending, but I really like mahjong solitare games and this is free. I'll play it until I either get sick of it begging me for cash, or get bored with the gameplay, and move onto something else.