What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Pokemon Shining Pearl (Switch)

March 31st, 2024

It's the last day of March, and also Easter, but I am neutral on both of those things. I do have to make some dairy free scalloped potatoes for an Easter lunch after posting here, but cooking is no hassle.

As far as games go, I finished An NPC's Odyssey yesterday and felt it was solidly okay. The translation was wonky, and the battle system was a little boring, but it's charming to spend 90 minutes playing a joke someone put so much effort into. My biggest problem is maybe that I got the good ending, but when I went to make the opposite choice to see the bad one, the game crashed, and did so repeatedly! For now, I don't really want to play through the quest again to get the other ending, so I'll leave it at just the one where things work out for now.

I played Pokemon Shining Pearl for quite a while last night, too, getting into the Underground, passing through Cycling Road and Mt. Coronet, and hitting Hearthome City. I really wasn't vibing with it, though, and felt a little bored, so I'll probably skip it for today.

March 29th, 2024

Today, I'm starting a little break from work, with five days off straight. I don't have any plans other than "I want to do a lot of crafts," but I'm hoping I can recharge a little this way.

Last night, I buzzed through the Eterna City stuff in Pokemon Shining Pearl. I felt like the Team Galactic building was kind of a difficulty crash after the gym leader, but even with the gym, I'd overlevelled during the week. It was pretty easy stuff.

I also started a tiny $1.99 RPG I'd picked up during a Switch eShop sale called An NPC's Odyssey. You play as an NPC who had his life savings stolen when the hero went through the chests in his house, which is a cute idea. The writing is sort of strange and awkward so far, though, with flashes of funny ideas that don't really gel. I read this is only about two hours long, so I'll keep going. Plus, I'm curious how high you can level up in such a small game.

March 28th, 2024

I still feel kind of spent, and was really not killin' it yesterday. I did play Pokemon Shining Pearl for a little bit before bed, though, making it through Eterna Forest, letting my Pachirisu wreck some fishermen, and hitting Eterna City.

March 27th, 2024

My energy is still bottomed out, so this is just a mirror of yesterday's post. I built this little flower block kit and was actually pretty pleased with it. These floral kits have such lovely petal designs!

I fought a few of the trainers outside of Eterna Forest in Pokemon Shining Pearl, too.

March 26th, 2024

I was really gloomy and low on energy yesterday, so I built this little off-brand Lego drink shop to try and give myself a sense of accomplishment.

I also did some level grinding in Pokemon Shining Pearl because it didn't take any brainpower.

March 24th, 2024

Yesterday was a pretty calm Saturday. I'm still on my Lego kick, so I built a little flowerpot yesterday. I think this kit was from AliExpress, but am not 100% sure on that. It's been in my stash for a while. I was so pleased with the colors, though, and the round bits on the petals make this one so cute! Blocks are good.

I played Pokemon Shining Pearl before dark, too, but landed in the game's sunset timeframe. It was really pretty, so I don't regret that, and I cleared a skirmish against Team Galactic in a wind-based power plant. A lady straight up handed me a Mew for having played Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee, though, so that kind of overshadowed everything else I did.

I also turned on my XBox to browse GamePass and downloaded The Quarry, wanting to play a newer FMV game to see how things have evolved since the 1980s. The answer is "a lot," but having a down arrow pop up on screen as my player character runs towards a hanging branch still awakens the Dragon's Lair poisoned sparkles in my heart. It also, so far, has taught me how irritating it is for video game characters to walk up and down stairs at the same speed real people would. I'm still super excited to play more of this today, though. It's cool to see the start of a genre and where it's ended up today right next to each other.

March 23rd, 2024

I'm very brick-focused right now, so I worked on lego stuff again last night. I have a bigger, name-brand Lego set I'm chipping away at, but my finish for last night was this fantastic off-brand diner from Five Below. (It's maybe dangerous to have a shop selling cheap toys so close to where I buy groceries. The little utensils and skillet were so bespoke they came on a model runner, and I like the design vibe of the signage stickers on this one, too. I'm really happy with it, especially for the price.

Games-wise, I put my almost-Waldo quest on hold to finish the current event in Fashion Dreamer. I had a lot of fun with it this month, and felt like the developers had really improved a lot of the tedium of the monthly events. I'll be looking forward to the next one.

From there, I got back to my very slow playthrough of Pokemon Shining Pearl, too, clearing exactly one very small route. I want to play a bit during daylight today or tomorrow, since my normal gaming habits don't mesh well with this game's day/night cycle.

March 10th, 2024

Daylight savings time is massively unpleasant, especially while I'm already having trouble with sleepiness. Taking a walk this morning helped me wake up a little, though, so I'm here and posting now.

Yesterday, I played another one of the small visual novels I've gathered on Switch, I'll Kill Her. I don't say that it was just a comic book with any snark intended- that's what it was. There were no choices or game play, but the art was really stylish, with lots of big screentones and bold colors, and it's interesting to think about what a non-standard format like this adds to or takes away from a story. It did have some unsubtle censored nudity, and I'm not sure if there's words they forgot to translate, or if they kept in some non-English words for the vibes. Also, as dark as this story was, the inclusion of a dress-up game from the main menu, which I always welcome, seemed strange. I kind of liked this game, though. It was an interesting impulse buy.

By the time I got to Pokemon Shining Pearl, I was dead tired, so I kind of wandered between Jubilife and Oreburgh for a while until I triggered an event by stumbling towards the right spot. From there, I just went to bed.

March 9th, 2024

I feel really dizzy today, and am in the depths of a manga binge. I started this morning with Goodbye, Eri, though, and really thought it was interesting. Maybe I kicked off the day on too high a note.

In the middle of reading a lot of manga last night, I decided to play one of the short visual novels I had stashed on my Switch and mix up the format a little. I went with the newest one I'd picked up, Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling. It was very short, with a very clear good-ending vs bad-ending trigger, and that was fine. The "explore mode" that unlocks after the main story, to act as an epilogue and explain everything, was a neat feature, but I maybe liked the mysterious feeling better before having the main character flat out explain the game's events. That was okay, though, and I understand why it was included. Navigating the house was also a little weird for me, but that might just be because I have no sense of direction, real or virtual.

Later on, I went in and beat the first gym leader in Pokemon Shining Pearl. I'm playing through very casually, but my victory was so close that I think I should have levelled up at least a little before fighting Roark! I'll keep this in mind for the next gym.

March 8th, 2024

Today's post is another short one! I got to Oreburgh City in Pokemon Shining Pearl this weekend, but that's about it. I'm hoping to fight my first gym in it this weekend, and I have another game I want to try out, too. If I don't pull it off, though, that's cool, too.

March 7th, 2024

I'm still sluggishly chipping away at Pokemon Shining Pearl, having played maybe 20 minutes or so last night. My goal was to catch a Starly, since that is a fine bird Pokemon indeed, but I caught it pretty quickly and was too sleepy to set about any other goals from there. Tonight, I'm kind of hoping to make it to the next town, but if I don't, I don't.

March 6th, 2024

Yesterday did end up being pretty busy, even though I was lucky in that the Facebook outage was shorter than I'd thought it would be. I got in half an hour of Pokemon Shining Pearl before bed, though, which wasn't bad! I hope it is interesting for everyone out there to bear witness to the start of one of the most torturously slow Pokemon series playthroughs documented.

March 5th, 2024

I'm trying to clean my apartment and having trouble focusing, so I only played another ten or so minutes of Pokemon Shining Pearl last night. I was hoping to play a better amount tonight, but it now appears I'm about to drive to my job that uses Facebook during a Facebook outage, so I'm kind of just abandoning that dream.

March 4th, 2024

It's the start of another week. I'm getting back to playing Pikmin Bloom, since the weather is getting nicer and my energy levels are starting to crawl back up. It's generally not very exciting, though, so I probably won't post about it much unless I feel like I achieved something neat I did get out and take a morning walk today, though, which felt really good!

Yesterday, I was bathroom cleaning during the day and played D&D at night, so it wasn't my best game day. I did, however, play roughly the first 15 minutes of Pokemon Shining Pearl. I barely did anything, so there's not a ton to say about it, but games are games!