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Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (Switch)

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Completed again. After finishing it with Edelgard’s Empire and being baffled by the logic of her decisions, I decided to New Game+ it and play through as Hufflepuff (or Faerghus Kingdom or whatever Dimitri’s blue lot are called). New Game+ carries over all your character levels, weapons, base facility unlocks and so on, so any characters that overlap between Red and Blue, plus Shez, were all incredibly overpowered to start with.

Well, not quite to start with, as for the first couple of missions you’re set to Level 1 again, but after that, indestructible. Which obviously meant the entire game was very easy. Not least because I already had super-powerful weapons and nothing to spend money on bar more level upgrades.

The plot for Dimitri made a lot more sense. Edelgard was under the control of Those Who Slither In The Dark and so most of it wasn’t her fault. I also managed to recruit Byleth and Jeralt this time through, meaning I got a few more chapters, a bizarre other-worldly mission, and a totally different ending.

So, at 75 hours in, time for New Game++ and Claude’s yellow lads.

Squiggle Drop (iPad): COMPLETED!

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Squiggle Drop is a simple idea but done in such a way to make you feel monumentally stupid.

The idea is that you draw a shape, which then (usually) drops down onto some objects and, hopefully, completes a task. So you might have a button that needs pressing, so you draw a brick and drop it on. Or there’s a chasm for a car to cross, so you draw a bridge. Things are somewhat more complicated when you need to draw shapes that move in a certain way once they land, or that perform two or more separate actions in order – but you can only draw one, unbroken, squiggly line.

Some real headscratchers were the one where you had to knock a cow out of a UFO tractor beam, only the cow is under the UFO, the object you draw is above it, and the UFO can’t be moved. Also, one where you have to pull a nail from a board but nail is vertically upright and the shape is, again, above.

It was enjoyable, but drawing with a finger wasn’t precise enough for some of the levels and so drawing seemingly the exact same shape on consecutive attempts caused wildly different outcomes due to the very tiny variations. Even with the hints (which show you the sort of shape you should draw) on, it’s near impossible to be exact, and so a few levels were unnecessarily frustrating. Still, physics games tend to be a bit random, and it wasn’t enough to prevent me from completing it. Well, complete until they decide to add some more levels, anyway.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Although I don’t really have any affinity for Fire Emblem, that hasn’t put me off getting hooked by series spinoffs in the past – Tokyo Mirage Sessions and the first Fire Emblem Warriors are two of my favourite games, but the old strategy titles I could take or leave. Not because they’re bad, just because they’re not Advance Wars and permadeath (which I know can be turned off these days) is scary.

Three Hopes is a musou Warriors-style reimagining of the story from mainline Fire Emblem game Three Houses, which of course I didn’t play. The plot is presumably similar – you’re a mercenary and you join one of three originally-at-peace houses, all of whom have a future leader at the same school, run by the Church of Seiros. Then, they’re no longer at peace for reasons which don’t really make sense.

For my first run through the game, I chose to join Edelgard of the Adrestian Empire, and it turned out she was keen to “create peace across the whole of Fodlan”, mostly by declaring war on both the church and her former school chums because someone who worked at the church but wasn’t part of the church turned out to be possessed by evil? Or something? Seems a bit extreme.

Ultimately, this means loads of smacking millions of baddies with swords and axes and magic in the same way all the other Warriors games work. And this bit of the game is really good. Levelling up, improving skills and weapons, building up your base to unlock new skills, items and abilities – lots of higher-number-chasing, but it’s a great gameplay loop. However, between all that there’s so much chat. Oh god is there a lot.

Each of your “team” has a relationship indicator with not just you, but everyone else in your team. You can converse with them, do activities with small groups, training and fight together, and take them out on dates. In itself, that’s not a problem and it builds backstories and stuff, but there’s so much of it I’ve found myself spending sometimes upwards of an hour chatting and managing relationships between fights. It’s probably mostly skippable, but there’s a FOMO element to it that I daren’t.

I’ve played much of the game in two-player with my daughter. It’s even better this way!

The smacking though, is so wonderfully fast and mindless and satisfying, that these betweentimes events just kill the momentum a bit. And they’re a little bit creepy. Overall though, the game is great. And now I have two more runs with the other colours…

Hue Flowing (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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This is a very simple platformer concept: explore, collect icons that allow you one additional air jump, then reach the area you can only get to once you’ve collected them all.

But, it’s the way it is presented that is absolutely beautiful. The area you explore is blank, but as you move around you sort of slosh watercolour paint everywhere to colour it in. Like, if de Blob and The Unfinished Swan had a 2D platformer baby.

You can wall jump, and slide down walls, and have to get the upgrades in a particular order as each requires one more jump than the previous one. It’s not a long or difficult game, but it is incredibly well put together with slick, responsive controls and a unique aesthetic. Oh, and it’s free!

Cave Buster (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Cave Buster is a short retro-style platformer which perhaps could be classed as a Metroidvania if it was a bit longer. You get a few upgrades that let you reach other areas, but there aren’t many areas (or many upgrades) so it doesn’t feel like you get to use them enough to consider it as that sort of game.

It is fun while it lasts, however. I’m assuming it was the result of a Game Jam or something, with the possibility of using the engine to create a larger game? Certainly, all it needs is more of the same and it’d be well worth a purchase. As it is, for free, it’s nice enough for a quick run through, it just ends (with the collection of a burger for… reasons?) leaving you wanting more.