#i haven't played the combat one. but quite frankly i don't need to

[rubys-domain]

i cannot even begin to express my disappointment at how chongyun's likeness is used as cover art for the combat event. i know it makes sense, but i don't like it.

#⇢₊˚⊹ 🩷∥ruby∥yo，ide yo !! #genshin spoilers #and at least for this first day of the event #the only reason he showed up was because xingqiu dragged him there #and obviously he's not gonna be a bitch about it #but he still didn't seem the least bit happy to be there the whole time #okay he's not outright sad or anything. but he's definitely not at his best either #i hope he gets to enjoy himself in the next day. because my god #today was kinda painful to play through ngl #obviously i want to see my main boy happy and having a good time #after he told us about his encounter with the weird maybe-a-spirit thing，i just wanted to give him a chair in the shade and maybe a popsicle #some mint jelly might even perk him up #since i'm talking about the event anyway，i'm just gonna say this here too #none of the event minigames are interesting to me #i haven't played the combat one. but quite frankly i don't need to #at this point i know that no matter what little variations they add，i'm still not gonna like it #the photo minigame is okay. other than walking around being kind of annoying #but they can only make a photo minigame so interesting so i'm still meh on it #i had the highest hopes for the dart one. but idk it just fell kinda flat for me #the dodoco minigame that lisa made is honestly way more fun to me than all three of these #i was really expecting some kind of riddle game. i know it's already part of the story，but #i expected smth like that guessing game in parade of providence. which i feel would've been more thematically fitting than the current ones #like... what does throwing darts have to do with poetry....... #i saw the previews in the livestream. i should've known it was going to be like this #rn i just hope that name-dropping chongyun in the livestream actually means that something interesting will happen with him as the focus #otherwise if he's just gonna stay like this the whole time，then i don't understand why hoyo would put him back in the banner for this event #who's gonna want to pull for him if he's not at the very least vibing in the story? #im still gonna pull for him regardless obviously. i need all his damn cons. but yk. i dont think this is doing much to endear him to anyone #maybe to other chongyun mains this is all copacetic and i should just be grateful that he gets to play a prominent role in an event at all #i just... hope the writers let him have a good time

[cyborg-squid]

i am quite excited with all the new Arknights stuff but 1) i finished playing Chapter 13 but still have to go back and read it, so the story portion is a little jammed in me right now, 2) i will have to play and read Zwillingsturm as well, 3) whatever big big stuff went on with the Babel event, and 4) i really am getting tired of Arknights alts. at least the way they've been doing them. so i'm a little Arknights-ed out at the moment.

a new Amiya class is good, an alt for Fang is a-okay, but an alt for W feels really unnecessary. she's already good! she already has a large story presence! the anniversary video literally has her walking alongside Amiya and Ch'en, showing her possession of the Protagonist Nature! she doesn't need an alt to prove that! AND SHE'S ALREADY LIMITED!!! i mean, i guess it's kinda like what Granblue's been doing with new versions of their already SSR units, selling you back characters that you already own.

i'm mostly fine with alts and new versions of low-rarity operators (Lava, Hibiscus, Fang, Kroos, Jessica) or ones for operators that, frankly speaking, weren't the best or even particularly good when they first came out (Texas, Skadi, Swire), but ones of units that are/were good, like Specter, Eyja, Ch'en (debatably)? c'mon man. and actually it further sucks that the Ch'en and Swire ones are seasonal swimsuit ones. like, okay, a seasonal version more powerful than the original one, that's old hat in gacha games and i'm used to it (*cough cough* Yukata Vania *cough cough*) but i don't like, in Arknights, these seasonal versions being where the continuations of Ch'en and Swire's respective stories are being put.

Also i wish that Bloodline of Combat skin for Ch'en Alter was available for original Ch'en, it's quite good. or really just give OG Ch'en a new outfit that does away with the Cop-py-ness, it's been shown multiple times that she has progressed past solely Lungmen and is a Rhodes Island operator, give us an outfit to illustrate that. it really sucked that the paid outfit for season 2 of the anime was even more Cop-py than her base E2 art.

also hey wait a second, with the new outfits, is this Corrupting Heart's 2nd Bloodline of Combat outfit? like, it looks good, she looks good, but c'mon, distribute that to those who haven't gotten any yet.

this turned into mostly me complaining and then talking about Ch'en. i really like her, not in the "bluh bluh muh waifu" sort of way, she's just such an interesting character and gets so many cool moments in the latter half of Reunion Arc (doubledragons), she's more than just the sort of "One Chapter Protag Operators" that we get every now and then (Blaze+Greythroat in chapter 6, Horn+Bagpipe in early Victoria Arc, Stainless in 10 and 11, etc...), she's really really central for a large part of AK's story and has well written relationships with Amiya and Talulah, the 'full' protagonist and antagonists of Arc 1, she is on a similar level as them, so to speak.

#arknights #my posts

[nbstevonnie]

final bingo card of the year... much less filled in than last years, but I rather expected that given the two sets of exams I had to take this year. frankly, I'm surprised it's as filled as it is.

for zany: yakuza kiwami

my first tiny cheat in filling this card out is previously i've only marked something off when i consider it "done". in yakuza's case, i am literally *this* close to 100% that i would really quite like to do it, but it also requires a LOT of grinding (and i hate grinding). but. i'm not sure i consider it "done", as i normally might. i have finished the story though, so this cheat isn't too dire.

i really enjoyed this game - it was good to see where the characters ended up after i saw them in yakuza 0, although my understanding is that a lot of stuff is only in kiwami (i.e., was not in the original game and was only put in after yakuza 0, so they would "marry up"). my one comment would be that, in many ways, it felt like a slightly less full yakuza 0 - there was more to do in yakuza 0, and i liked being able to play both kiryu and majima. i also liked that money was easier to come by in 0, even if only for getting to 100% completion 😔 this is all not exactly yakuza kiwami's fault, and i think i "got" the combat system more in kiwami than 0 (in 0, i understood that i was supposed to feel superpowered by the end -- and i saw people showing off how well you could game the system -- but it never seemed that way to me; in kiwami, i 1000% could knock back small enemies like the flies they were in seconds by the end). nevertheless, kiwami does by its nature beg for comparison to 0. i'm curious to see how kiwami 2 stacks up next.

overall, 8/10. good game, looking forward to kiwami 2.

for 2020s: crash bandicoot 4

i generally avoid letting my opinions on a video game be coloured by other people's opinions, so i went into this game with an open mind and i think i came out with some affection for it, albeit by re-assessing how i would normally play the game. to wit, i am generally a completionist, but that stops the minute completing something becomes more chore than challenge, and this game would undoubtedly have it as a chore.

as a casual to slightly challenge-seeking game, the game is enjoyable. it has its flaws (i complained about the long levels in 2 and 3 -- this game spits on the 2 and 3 level lengths) but i did enjoy some of its challenges. i think i would -- in contrast to how i normally play games -- dip in and out to tidy up and get closer to 100% completion, but i won't go nuts with it.

my one slight disappointment is i LOVE the video tape levels, but you can only get them all by not dying to increasingly further points on increasingly harder levels. i think i've scooped up all the tapes reasonably doable, and will have to think about the rest as and when i return to the game. incidentally, i think one of the things i like about the tape levels is because they remind me more of the things that i liked about the original crash games than the rest of the game: tight platforming, challenging but ultimately not requiring perfection from you for long, and instantly replayable.

overall, 7/10 i think -- under the proviso of playing essentially casually. if it were a completionist thing (as i had done for the other games), it would dip much lower.

for uplifting: stardew valley

my other slight cheat game - i haven't "completed" it, but i've put 150 hours in over the last year (hey, maybe that's why i haven't completed bingo this year, not the exams -- two huge time sink games!), so i think maybe i can be forgiven.

i really love this game - it's very calming for me to play when i have nothing else to do, and i've also got a farm with my friend, so we can play together. i don't have much more to say bc i think everyone knows why this game is great and i really look forward to getting those last few things i need to complete everything :)

for black: the cat lady

yet ANOTHER slightly cheat game -- albeit in a different way. i have generally made a point of not including games i've played before, and i haven't played this game before -- but i had watched a let's play. it was many years ago now and i no longer watch the let's player for reasons, and i wanted to show this game some love, since i used to really enjoy the let's player's playthrough. so again, i hope my slight cheat can be forgiven! especially since i had been hoping that this might fill in my bittersweet box to get me bingo, but i ended up with the "golden" ending, so while the game itself may have been overall, i didn't quite feel i could tick off bittersweet, since the ending was so positive.

the game really makes a great atmosphere with its visuals and it really nails the horror -- chapter 2 (i think it is) is particularly good for this -- i genuinely felt creeped out. it's also interesting how the horror parts are often the parts that are the most colourful in the game. the game really does make you think a lot with very little.

8/10

#i may cheat a little and use this card into 2023 as well just bc i really liked it and want to see if i can get bingo if i keep going #i mean. i've already cheated in how i've filled it out as i said so 😬 #video game bingo #video game bingo 2022 #the cat lady #playing the cat lady #crash bandicoot 4 #playing crash bandicoot 4 #stardew valley #playing stardew valley #yakuza kiwami #playing yakuza kiwami