What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance (Switch)

August 31st, 2022

It's the last day of August, and I have another game finish to report today, with the stunning conclusion of Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance! This game got screamingly tedious, since the layouts just got more and more tiles instead of getting more difficult, but the story didn't have a bad ending, as far as things go. The game overstayed its welcome by a mile, and I'm glad I'm done with it, but it wasn't awful. Plus, I'm at 3 of 10 games cleared for my goal now!

I tried to get a little further in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight after that, and got two social events and a trophy, which was pretty good. I'd forgotten how motion sick I got trying to find the cards in all of the characters' rooms, so I don't intend to do a lot of those in a night, even if I unlock them. Finishing games is somewhat satisfying, but puking isn't.

With my mahjong game done, I then tried to find another game to play before bed and guessed incorrectly. The Sims 2 Pets might be something I pick up again later, but last night, it did not click. I think that this, in large part, may have been because I didn't know how Sim creation would go and I felt like I did a bad job with that. The control felt really imprecise, too, which was driving me crazy dealing with the titular pets. Regardless of the reasons why I'm abandoning it for now, though, I'm going to try one of the DS My Sims games instead tonight.

August 30th, 2022

I had big video game plans last night, but got sleepy, went to Subway, and totally abandoned them! Instead, I decided to give another go to a couple games that have only popped up in one post here. Today, though, I got up early fearing an internet outage during work. Since my internet is working, I have nothing to stress about on that front and the time to detail my incremental progress before my shift.

After some daily life stuff last night, I went and laid flat on my back in bed and played Sonic Runners Adventure for a few levels, which I hadn't touched since my train ride earlier this month. Freed of being stuck on an Amtrak train, I have to say that this game is barely engaging, and the level layout is super repetitive. Also, despite seeming pretty basic, it crashed my phone. I unlocked Charmy the Bee, though, which was super cute, and got a small feeling of "wow, I'm great at this game" for getting a lot of three star ranks on levels. I'm just glad this is something I could, theoretically, finish.

My trouble for the night started after that, when I went to play Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight. My internet went out just a couple minutes before I clicked the PS4 on, and the machine didn't want to do anything. It threw up error messages when I turned it on, the game was tough to start because it wanted to check for DLC, and I couldn't check my trophies easily after getting during gameplay. Once I got everything up and running it was fine, at least until the system stalled out when I tried to put it to sleep. My goal was to score one social event, so I played a couple songs and pulled that off. I'm actually over half done with this, so I might stick with it. It's fun, and getting all the social events seems doable.

Last, and certainly least, I finished another set of puzzles in Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance, leaving me two stages from the end. I met the vampire, and, after seeing all of his minions die at the hands of my mahjong solitaire skills, he decided that the best way to defeat me, the master of tile matching, is with, of course, more mahjong solitaire. I don't think he's great at problem solving.

August 29th, 2022

I was mildly helpful and productive yesterday, but still found some time to fritter away on games. My biggest chunks of game time for the day were spent on Late Shift, another FMV game I bought cheap on Switch. It's from the 2010s, and it's interesting to see how far production values and filmmaking skill have come since Double Switch, which I was playing last weekend. There's not nearly as much gameplay here, though, with the game opting instead to turn a British crime thriller into a choose-your-own adventure story. I did two 90 minute playthroughs yesterday, swapping out the whole center of the game and getting two mildly different endings. The setup for replay is really rough, though! There's no chapter selects or scene skips, so you have to sit through the whole 90 minutes every time you want to go for a different ending.

In the two playthroughs I did, I saw every scene aside from the endings but one, so I was really tempted to call the game cleared as is. Both endings I got were so bad, though, that it really bothered me leaving it as is without trying to "fix" things. I need at least a few days before I see if I can get a "good" ending, though, so I'm letting this be for now. (I also might cheat and use an ending guide, because watching this 7 times is bad enough without guesswork.)

Before bed, I cleared another set of puzzles in Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance. I hit an unclearable puzzle, where the developers had put an odd number of tiles in the stage layout, making a full set of pairs totally impossible. They even left the last tile standing blank! I hit the "skip" button to go past it, but it still left me frustrated. I'm too close to the end of this mess to quit now, though.

August 28th, 2022

Yesterday didn't end up being bad overall. I did get my September placeholder links set up, and set a goal for myself to finish a badly made bootleg diamond painting I was working on for someone else. I did finish the craft project, but since I didn't actually want to be doing it, I procrastinated in completely normal ways- spending over 2 hours on a simple doodle, dozing off twice, and watching 6 episodes of Dirty Pair on Pluto. It was actually pretty fun, but not good for gaming.

I did clear a couple more stage sets in Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance, though, with a lot of 2:30 am giggling at cheaply made story shortcuts and a faint sense of tedium towards the mahjong solitaire itself. I'm close enough to the end that I could finish today, but it's a little boring to play for more than a few minutes at a time, so I'm hoping to finish early next workweek.

August 27th, 2022

It was not a good games day for me yesterday. I still wasn't sleeping well, and work kicked my butt. Today should be better, though! It's Saturday, so I'm off work, and I actually slept decently. I've already been to Target today- I feel very productive all around!

Speaking of being out and about, I cleared the weekly 20,000 step challenge in Pikmin Bloom yesterday. I was really out of it and tired last week, so I didn't make it, making me feel all the better that I got this within five days this week. Plus, my little victory image has a lot of good purple Pikmin. It's satisfying.

My only active gaming, though, was a decent chunk of Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance. Below, please see the stock photo-esque woman who is guiding me through the vampire's castle. She's, like, really impressed that I'm good at matching tiles, and only gets more enthused as things progress. The people and damned souls of the area must not get out much.

As far as this website goes, I want to set up placeholder links for my September post archive page today, but Neocities is running a bit slowly right now. I'll probably do that while I'm watching TV later.

August 26th, 2022

My work had an employee appreciation day yesterday, which was actually pretty good. I got to bowl a few games with my coworkers, and though I did a terrible job, it was fun. Plus, I got free food.

On the games front, I did my last playthrough of Sonic the Fighters, finishing up with Honey the Cat. I saved her for last because I thought she had a cute character design and I liked the Fighting Vipers crossover, but she was a good note to end on. I felt like I could pull off some really good combos, and whether that's because I had finally gotten good at the game, or because Honey was a good character, it's fine. Sonic the Fighters was fun to check in on every day, and I'm definitely going to keep fighting games in my rotation.

I'm at 2 of 10 games cleared now! It's not bad progress!

From there, though, I was still dead tired, so I just kept going in Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance. The story continues to be bafflingly dumb and cheaply patched together, but I was enjoying all of the super vertically oriented layouts I hit last night.

August 25th, 2022

Yesterday was an in-office day, where I hadn't slept well the night before, and I did some stuff after work. I was pretty sleepy after everything was done, so I just kept plugging away at Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance. I will say that I love the lengths this game goes to, with an entirely straight face, insist that mahjong solitaire is a normal way to go about fighting an evil vampire lord, but it's pretty unremarkable. The unlimited number of pairs any given tile can have tanks the difficulty, too. That's pretty much fine for my purposes, since I'm playing directly before falling asleep, but it gives it a too-easy feel.

August 24th, 2022

It was my next to the last character playthrough in Sonic the Fighters last night, and it was truly infuriating! I used Fang the Sniper, who I think would be extremely useful and fun to use against a real person, but was borderline useless against the AI. Since he's projectile based, being the only character with a gun, his attack and defense seemed lower, and he definitely had less attacks that could break opponent barriers. That meant that, even in the early levels, I couldn't get any damage in and then got KO'd from what felt like two kicks to the face. It did get a little easier as I went, but I found the playthrough to be so frustrating it was physically painful at times. It was an accomplishment to clear the arcade mode, though, that was for sure!

From there, I picked up my Switch to play a cheap casual mahjong solitaire game, Mahjong Stories: Vampire Romance. That title may seem quite direct, but it has no romance of note so far. Anyway, I started this one maybe two and a half years ago, after picking it up for a dollar or two on the eShop, and just picked it back up last night. The theming in these games doesn't matter to me- it has that mid '10s PC casual game vibe so hard I expect to see a Big Fish branded advertisement between each level, and it's proficient enough at throwing a mahjong board on screen that I can happily match tiles until I pass out. I would not say it's good, but it does exactly what I need it to do.