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Pesticide Not Required (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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What if Vampire Survivors was a chop-chop, dig-dig game? As in, as well as auto-attacking swarms of enemies with increasingly more powerful weaponry, you also plant crops, mine ore and catch fish? Well, Pesticide Not Required answers that question.

As with other Survivors-type/Bullet Heaven games, there’s the usual kill things, get XP, go up levels, spend points on mostly random updates, and repeat. Only here, in order to progress, you have to buy seeds at the end of each day and plant them, keeping them watered until they’re able to be harvested. At first this is tricky as you’ve limited tillable soil area, plus you’re dealing with all the baddies, but you can unlock helpers who can plant and water on your behalf, and you’re able to purchase extra planting spots too.

This addition set of chores really changes the gameplay a fair bit, as you have to specifically go to areas of your garden as well as just avoid baddies, or you won’t progress. Is it better than Vampire Survivors? No. But it’s well worth playing. Oh, and if you’re wondering, I class it as complete because I completed every scenario in every season.

Un Pas Fragile (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Un Pas Fragile is a short narrative game about a frog who wants to do ballet. As all frogs do, I expect. It plays out over a few days, where you leave your house, get the bus, go to ballet school, and do some ballet.

Of course, other people (er, animals) are not as accepting of your life choices as you’d like, so you get laughed at and bullied to begin with, meaning that you have to do some simple interactions with them each day to try and win them over. Then, when it comes you giving your final ballet performance in the game, your new friends (assuming you’ve made some) all make up the audience.

It’s pretty simple, but very sweet.

Souldiers (PS5): COMPLETED!

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From the name I fully expected this game to be a soulslike so just clicked nope-skip every time I saw it for sale. But then I stumbled across it on a Metroidvania Games You May Have Missed list and I re-evaluated. Then I noticed it was on sale for about three quid on PSN and so bought it.

First thing I have to say about it is that it’s HUGE. I’m used to 2D Metroidvanias for being 8-10 hours long, maybe 15 at the most, but Souldiers took me over 40 to complete. The world is made up of several large areas like a mine and a pyramid and a sky fortress and each one is about as big as a reasonably sized game by itself. In fact, if I’d completed the first area and that was the end, I’d have felt that was plenty of game, but no – it kept on going.

The plot is something about how you are one of a band of soldiers who, in the middle of a war, end up trapped in a cave. A fairy-like being appears to you and offers you an escape, but to another world. With no hope of getting out any other way, you accept and all step through a portal, ending up in what seems to be a sort of limbo that all sorts of races go to after they die.

This world is under threat though, bad thing with all the power is taking over the place, and so you volunteer to help. Which means you mostly have to do it all yourself. Sure, some of your fellow soldier and new friends help out a bit, but you know how it goes.

It’s a vast Metroidvania with each area being very different in terms of style and gimmicks. There are loads of power-ups, upgrades and secrets, some tricky bosses, and a cast of varied characters, as well as a few twists along the way. Definitely recommended to fans of the genre. Like me!

November – Autumnal Vibes

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Play

Currently Playing


Wordle, Strands & Connections (Android)
Finally got a perfect with a video game category!
 
 

I'm enjoying playing daily Wordle, Connections & Strands. I've given up on Spelling Bee (requires in-app subscription to progress) & Pips (is pretty easy on the first two levels and Hard is difficult to play on mobile phone).

Hole.io (PS5)

A simple game where you start off as a tiny hole and have to eat things to get bigger, lol it's great fun! 

Balatro (PS5)

Back at this trying to crack the Purple Stake on the Yellow Deck!

It Takes Two (PS5)

I missed this off last month post but started this with Nemo, now I just need to get here attention off Simpsons Fortnite & Skate to get back to playing it!

November Plans

To play Lost Records Bloom & Rage Tape 2 & Sword of the Sea

Completed

Lost Records Bloom & Rage - Tape 1 (PS5)

Developed by Don't Nod (I do enjoy playing their games!), this is a story about four girls who go back to the town of Velvet Cove to relive the summer of 1995, will be starting Tape 2 soon.

8/10 

Messenger (Browser)

Gobsmacked that it runs in a browser, nice and short, 20 to 30 mins max with a handful of fetch-type quests, but lovely to explore.

Go play it https://messenger.abeto.co/ 

5/10 

The Invincible (PS5)

A video game adaptation of a science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, looks stunning; gameplay is mainly a walking sim type.

7/10 

Promise Mascot Agency (PS5)
For the first time in forever, I purchased, played & completed a game in the same month!

Really enjoyed this, it feels like a large-scale "Kairosoft" game with a funny cast of characters & a Yakuza story. This would not look out of place in a RGG Yakuza game.

8/10

 

Yet another Waterfall!

 

Backlog

Current Backlog

I have had a proper look through my backlog to remove games I have no intention of playing or have expired in the subscription service. 

Digital Games - 31 with new purchases inc Darkest Dungeon & Steamworld Dig 2.

PS+ Subscription - 5, I've added As Dusk Falls (looking forward to playing this story game)

PS+ Monthly - 20 (recently added Cocoon & Alan Wake 2)

Physical Games - 11 (no new additions)

Total  67 Games (Reduced by 25 from last month!)


Shopping

I've added a new Shopping page to the top, current total is £310.27!

https://www.gospvg.com/p/2025-shopping.html 

I upgraded Alan Wake 2 to the Deluxe editiion to get the DLC, purchased and completed Promise Mascot Agency in the same month!, Papa Quiz for £1.99 is something to enjoy with the family & Darkest Dungeon, I blame Abbas who was singing it's praises! 

 

Want

Current Wishlist is at 27 Games (added Paradise Killer) but I need to focus on the games above!

 

Bin

Nothing again, I think I'll remove this section going forward if nothing to add.

Piffle (iOS): COMPLETED!

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Piffle, or more accurately, Piffle+ (it’s a free IAP-less Apple Arcade version of an IAP’d game), is a simple arcade puzzle-ish game that is a bit Breakout and a bit Peggle. You throw balls (which are cat heads) upwards at blocks, destroy as many as you can, and then they all move down a row before you have another go.

Different blocks have different properties, like they can only be hit from certain directions, or they replicate, or they capture your balls, and your balls can augmented with powers like additional strength or explosives, in the same sort of way most Match-3 games are these days. Clearly extra balls and powers were how the in-app purchases worked in the non-Apple Arcade version.

Anyway, it’s a bit mindless and isn’t exactly taxing on the puzzle muscles, but it whiled away some time.