What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Martial Knight (Switch)

June 30th, 2024

Today is the last day of June, bringing me to four games cleared for the month just under the wire! None were RPGs, and none were on GamePass, either, but that is okay. I'm not going to set any goals like that for next month because I don't actually care very much. I'd still like to clear four games again, but without worrying about genre or system.

Yesterday, I cleared Martial Knight, which was a very frustrating experience! The workouts themselves were fine, and were able to clear some shoulder tension that's bothered me for ages, so it wasn't worthless. The game itself doesn't work very well, though. I'm super willing to forgive the strange, asset flip-y looking graphics, but the motion controls were very inconsistent. Plus, scoring itself broke for some moves near the end of the game, not even registering misses. It made the game feel inherently broken. I probably will boot this back up the next time my shoulders hurt too much to focus on my work, but I still wish it worked better.

After finishing that, I booted up Walk It Out!, a very literal walking simulator for Wii scored by Konami's stable of 00s DJs. I just heard of this recently and picked it up right away, not feeling disappointed by my first mile walked-in-place at all. I'm probably going to play again after this post to see how this looks in the daylight, though, since this is linked to real time. I had my Wii clock set wrong when I took this screenshot, so it's not always so dark!

I started in on Metal Slug Attack Reloaded before bed, too, and don't really have many thoughts on it yet. It's definitely a gacha game ported over to Switch as a standard release, for better or worse, but I'm kind of looking forward to participating in power creep without paying up for it. Plus, I don't play enough tower defense stuff to be sick of the genre, which works in my favor here.

I also played a couple more sets of missions in Fashion Dreamer and am hoping to polish off the June event tonight or tomorrow. I'm cutting it pretty close, so I'd at least like to nab the last photo frame before it ends.

June 29th, 2024

Throughout this week, I've been dreadfully lazy, so today, I'm trying to tackle a lot of my to-do list items for the week that I simply haven't done. There's no way in hell I'm getting through the list, which is fine! Since starting, I've never actually cleared it. I'd like to do better than I have so far, though, so I'll try my best today.

Since my to-do list also has hobbies on it, though, so I don't panic that I will be forever mired in a swamp of chores and work, I will get to continue in the two games I'm posting about today! With Fashion Dreamer, I only did a couple of mission sets last night, but got so many beautiful outfits from other players! I usually try my best to actually make an outfit for the screenshots I take here, but today's is all items I got from other players. I'm surprised, but happy that choosing "beige" as this character's color has turned out to be so lovely.

I got pretty close to the end of Martial Knight last night, and'll probably finish it today. I only have three levels left, but since they're getting longer as I go, I didn't want to set myself up for a marathon. It's driving me a bit crazy that the position in which I hold the joycon seems to matter, but I can't see what the game wants me to do since every trainer's hands are always on fire. With these workouts, though, I've actually been able to shake off some of my shoulder soreness, so I'm a little more willing to forgive bad design choices than I might be in a more traditional game.

June 28th, 2024

It's a rainy, dreary day, but since it's Friday, it's difficult to be too down about that. Last night, I crossed the halfway point of this month's Fashion Dreamer event, and am hoping to have it totally cleared by the end of the weekend. My focus will be the only challenge on that front.

I also got halfway through Martial Knight, and I have no idea what this game wants me to do for some of the actions. I think that a lot of them are dependent on the angle at which I'm holding the Joycon rather than the action itself, which is tricky. There's one level I've played four times now, trying to figure an action out, but I can't do better than a miss on it at all. I'm still getting a workout here, so I will see this through to the end unless the back half of the game gets really crazy. I just no longer care about my scores past getting through a level.

June 27th, 2024

I'm having a challenging time being awake today, so this won't be a very long post. I picked up a very cheap fitness game on Switch last night, though, called Martial Knight, thinking it would be bad enough to be funny. The character models look very strange, and there's a weird suddenness to their movements that makes the exercises feel mysterious. Once I figured out how it wanted me to calibrate the joycons before each round, though, the exercising itself wasn't too bad. I feel like motion detection in it is still hit and miss enough that it would be a folly to chase S ranks on every level, but if I can get B ranks over the next few days, I'll be happy.

I played another really bad run of Balatro, too. The Wall is the most cursed boss blind, and I think part of a successful run might involve having the good luck to avoid that score spike.