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The Sword of Stone (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Searching for this online is a pain because Google thinks you’re talking about the animated film “The Sword in the Stone”, which this Game Gear game, hidden in the Evercade’s firmware, has nothing to do with. Instead of being related to that, the game is essentially a visual novel, albeit one that plays out more like an RPG.

You pick one of three characters, and then have a quest given to you. The world you all inhabit is, well, here’s the blurb:

The world of Mindevil is in danger! Begin a journey as one of the three heroes in order to put an end to the conflict between the four kingdoms. Complete all 7 chapters revealing a complex story with many branches and save the world… with a twist at the end!

So your quest plays out differently depending on which character you choose. You’re initially limited to different areas of the map each, as you have different skills that allow you to fight different types of monster blocking each route. Once you complete it with one character, you’re encouraged to do it with the other two, and you’ll see how their stories link. After completing all three, three further quests are possible by making different choices eventually unlocking a final quest where all three characters work together.

I found it a little frustrating to play, with lots of repetition and backtracking, and so much repeated dialogue it really slowed down progression. If you can get past that, though, there’s a decent little game here with some really clever gating and interwoven storylines.

December – Is it that time of the year already!

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Play

Wordle, Strands & Connections (Android)

Still playing these three games on a daily basis, Wordle streak is at 65 days! Connections is the tougher game of the three and my max streak is 37 days with 21 Perfect Puzzles & Strands is all perfect, 67 games played with 100% solved.

It Takes Two (PS5)

Very slow progress on this, always waiting for my co-op partner to be available. But I do like beating her at the mini-games

 

Lost Records Bloom & Rage - Tape 2 (PS5) - Completed

Continues from the first game with the girls reliving their memories and looking for closure. It's a telltale-like game with freedom to explore but does have the dreaded timer to pressure you into decisions.

Hole.io (PS5) - Completed

Sometimes the simple games are the most fun, perfect for a few minutes of gaming.

 

Of course I end with a Waterfall video from Pacific Drive which I started but just could not gel to it and enjoy.

 

December Gaming Plans

Hopefully some more time enjoying It Takes Two, starting and completing As Dusk Falls & Sword of the Sea (both of which are short games, according to HLTB) & deciding which of my physical games I start for Christmas?! I'll leave that as a surprise for next month's post!

 

Backlog

Digital Games (31) - No change including no new purchases!

PS+ Subscription (4) -  Reduced by 1, I completed Lost Records Tape 2, I did add Pacific Drive & Thank Goodness but then promptly took them off (see bin)

PS+ Monthly (20) - No change

Physical Games (12) - +1 in Dragons Dogma 2

Total = 67 Games


Shopping

Purchased Steamworld Dig 2 & Steamworld Build on digital & Dragons Dogma 2 on Physical (I had £10 bonus points to use on Game Collection), and yes I still need to play the first game! 

Want

Wishlist is reduced by 2 because Pacific Drive & Thank Goodness were added to Playstation Extra 

Bin

Trophies - I've now turned off all notifications for trophies to allow me to just enjoy games the way I want to and not have some tickbox exercise, it really helped me enjoy Lost Records Tape 2 not having to worry about collectables or pointless trophies.

Pacific Drive

I was curious about this but maybe it's the UI or playing with a controller I found it quite cumbersome and got bored of the crafting. It did have a waterfall in the game!

Thank Goodness You're Here

Another game that was on my wishlist and I'm glad I did not purchase, yes it's a comedy game but it's very crude comedy with sexual innuendos and yeah not for me, deleted!

 

 

 

 

 

Metal Slug 2 (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Another SNK cartridge (actually, two) arrived for the Evercade and since my daughter and I enjoyed playing the first Metal Slug in co-op recently, we did the same with the sequel.

Naturally, it’s more of the same. Only now you can ride camels as well as tanks, and after a few levels it becomes clear that Definitely Not Any Real Middle Eastern Military Dictator is in cahoots with actual aliens.

It still has the slowdown issues of the first game, but it’s silly fun regardless.

Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I do like a Kaz Ayabe game. I’ve played a few recently, including the previous Shin chan tie-in. They’re all set in sleepy Japanese villages where very little happens and this one is the same. However! Shin chan’s dog, Shiro, wanders off and finds a mysterious train that take him (and, when he is led there, Shin chan) to Coal Town – a mining town that nobody in the village seems to have heard of.

Your days are split between the usual Ayabe tasks of catching fish and bugs, running errands for your family and neighbours, doing a bit of gardening, and making friends with the local kids. It is never explained why there are children and pensioners in this village, but nobody inbetween (aside from one childless woman and a visiting chef) so who are the parents? And why doesn’t anyone care they’re all out after dark? Anyway, yes, your time is split doing that stuff, and also visiting Coal Town and helping out there.

It seems the mayor of Coal Town has, now the mine is running low on coal, gone a bit mad and is doing evil nefarious things which I won’t spoil. It’s your job, as a five year old so obviously best qualified, to help out and stop this happening. Which mostly involves cooking things, collecting items for an inventor, and – crucially – mine cart racing. Of course. Without giving too much away, the plot seems heavily borrowed from the Your Name anime, wrapped up in a Ghibi bow. No bad thing, though.

Unlike other games in the series, there’s no deadline for getting everything done. In previous titles, you’d have a summer, or a month, or a repeating week timeloop, but here you don’t seem to be able to run out of days. Which makes the whole thing even more laid back and relaxing than before. In fact, only the arcadey mine cart races are anything but.

So not a huge change to the formula. It’s back to mostly static (as in, not fully 3D) environments of the past after the Natsu-mon game changed it, but then I’m not sure which order the games were originally released in in Japan. It does mean a return of the “hold left to walk off the screen and enter to the left on the next screen and so walk off again immediately” issue, but it’s a minor thing.

Definitely a recommended play if you’re a fan of Ayabe’s work.

A Building Full of Cats: up on the roof

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I like cats. I like Little Kitty Big City, I like Pix the Cat, I even liked Blinx. If I like games with a few cats in, then I am almost certain to love games with hundreds of cats in, right?

In this case, yes. A Building Full of Cats is a hidden object game where the objects are cats. Lots of cats. Each floor of the building has fifty cats in plain sight, and some (I think ten) hidden in cupboards, behind curtains, and so on. There are two rooms per floor, including a bathroom, meaning that you can’t see everything at once, and there’s one cat who moves when you click on them, until you find their final hiding place. When you start a level, there are a great many cats who are easily visible, but by the time you get to the last few you’re searching for a couple of ears sticking out of a vase or similar.

The monochrome art style makes the cats pop out once you click on them.

I’ve completed floors 1 and 2, and also the roof off the top of floor 5. I find it a very relaxing game, so am saving other floors when I need to destress.

I’ve actually played and completed another game by the same people, Hidden Cats in London. I mainly started that because I needed the trophies for one of the TrueTrophies events a while ago, but it was just as charming as A Building Full. I see there are others set in Paris and other cities, so I may need to investigate those in future.