What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Model Debut #nicola (Switch)

December 15th, 2024

Yesterday, I hid inside from the ice, which gave me a lot of time for games. Luckily, I'd just gotten my preorder of an Atari 7800+ in, so I had plenty to do! My family had a slightly outdated Atari 2600 when I was little, but I'd never played the 7800 before yesterday. It's probably very skewed to judge a system like this by a souped up re-release and a modern pack-in cartridge, but it seems neat! I played Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest, which came with the system, for a little bit, and was surprised how vibrant the colors were, and by how much I liked the controller, too. The game itself seems like it'll be a bit of a "git gud" situation, but I'll give it more shots!

I was really excited to pop in the Epyx sports 2600 multicart I'd ordered, though, for California Games. I maybe took too much pride in being a better gamer at 37 than I was at 4 as I played, but even aside from that, the demo scene vibes of the title screen and the weird, puppet-ish hacky sack guy looked great plugged into an HDMI port! From here, I'm a bit determined to improve a bit at the BMX event, but it'll be a fun grind.

With the multicart popped into the system, I wanted to try the other two included games, too. I'd never played either before, but found Summer Games kind of confusing and tedious on my first play. Everything seemed to have really tricky timing, and I thought the graphics were a bit flat compared to California Games.

I had a lot more fun with Winter Games, though. The sled and luge events have a crazy sense of speed for the 2600, and biathalon was the only event I felt truly baffled by. I'm looking forward to figuring out how this game works a bit better.

Because this post really needs to go on longer, I did quite a lot of more modern gaming, too. I had enough time to devote to it, so I grabbed my study notebook and tackled some walls of text in Model Debut #nicola. I unlocked the clothing shops and got a hairstyling assignment, so the game is opening up a bit at this point. Being able to read the Japanese text is still the most satisfying bit of it, though.

I went a bit overboard with Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade as I did chores and stuff, too. It seemed like time to get my characters leveled up, so yesterday, I was mostly just grinding for materials. It wasn't super exciting, but it was fun.

Lastly, I kept on in Aquarium Land, too. This really isn't offering anything new other than the numbers going up as I move through the game, but I'm over halfway through. It doesn't seem like it'll overstay its welcome, even if it is getting a spot repetitive.

December 1st, 2024

December is off to a sleepy start for me. I should have posted sooner, but I was reading the Boss Fight Books entry on Bible Adventure cover to cover instead, and after that, I dozed off for a few minutes. It was good, but maybe a spot unproductive.

Last night, though, I just played Model Debut #nicola for a while. I hit some text boxes I had to dictionary scum my way through, so it was maybe 45 minutes of reading in Japanese to ten minutes of gameplay. That is not nothing, though, so I'm not upset about it.

November 30th, 2024

Today is the last day of November, but I am too overwhelmed by being slightly behind on making some mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving lunch to properly reflect on this. The potatoes are in the pot and boiling now, so only time can help me.

Yesterday was a pretty minor gaming day. I did another task in Model Debut #nicola, which is pretty simple now that I can actually read what the game is telling me. Basically, it tells me a clothing item and style to include in an outfit, lets me pick, tells me I'm wonderful, and then has me edit the image for virtual online consumption. I used to have a localized 3DS game in this series, Girls' Fashion Shoot, and this basically seems to be the same thing with slightly more story and spiffier graphics.

I also tried La-Mulana last night, which is as mysterious feeling as I'd heard, and should be a fun game to poke around in for a while. I'm not so worried about clearing it so much as I am messing around and exploring, so I don't feel daunted by the difficulty.

November 29th, 2024

Yesterday was a genuine day off for me, so I cleared Coffee Pack by spending too much time playing this decidedly casual game in a probably too-hardcore way. I got it in my head that it would be no good to do anything else until I had it finished, so I spent at least a couple hours curled up around my Switch, just really matching those coffee cups. I liked this game, and had fun with it as a new, deceptively tricky little pick-up-and-play puzzle game. For 16 cents, I got more than my money's worth out of it. Still, I played it so hard that once I cleared level 40, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief, as if I had been released from a curse.

From there, I wanted to play a fashion game on Switch without actually buying a new fashion game, so I redownloaded Model Debut #nicola. I'd bought this when it was first released a few years back, but hadn't made any meaningful headway in learning to read Japanese yet, so I bounced off it fast. Last night, with some shock, I learned that years worth of regular study had actually paid off, and I can now get through the text in this game with maybe one or two dictionary checks per text box. I'm very inclined to undercut this accomplishment, as it's easy text about daily life, and I'm still pretty constantly checking on words I don't know. It still feels good, though. Learning a foreign language sucks, and it's nice to make tangible progress.