Diary — Page 70

Cattails (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on 13/04/2021 Written by deKay

Sold to me as Stardew Valley Only Cats, Cattails isn’t really that. There are a lot of visual similarities, and there are shared features like a day/night cycle, improving your home, getting married, foraging and mining, but it’s much more simplistic than Stardew Valley and much shorter too. And there are more cats.

Starting the game as a pet dumped by the side of the road for reasons not explained (one minute you’re in a happy home, then literally a second later the mum of the family kicks you out), you join one of three wild cat tribes and set about surviving in nature. Which mostly involves hunting for small animals and picking berries and flowers.

You can improve your skills so you’re able to catch prey more easily or swim further before downing, and there’s some turf warfare going on, but it’s pretty light on RPG elements really. The main storyline, such that it is, mostly requires you to collect certain dead creatures and flowers for some standing stones, as well as solve some generally simple puzzles, in order to make The Guardian return. So I did that.

Cattails could not be described as a challenging game, nor is it deep or complex, and the story is… somewhat missing. But it is a simplistic and relaxing game, and did only cost me about a quid, so I can hardly complain.

I’ll be honest – I’m only interested in you Missy because you live next door and I’m a lazy, lazy cat.

Kunai (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on 07/04/2021 Written by deKay

I was in the mood for a nice little pixelly Metroidvania, and then this appeared and was on sale. Also, Kendrick off of the ugvm podcast said it was good but of course it turns out he’s barely played it. Thankfully, he was right despite this.

The plot is silly nonsense about computers at war rebel computers and you’re a sentient iPad with legs who can save the world or something. Ignore that though, and instead enjoy the excellent traversal mechanics which are given to you piecemeal as per any other Metroidvania game. There’s a double jump, but then you get the kunai of the title which are actually more like ninja ropes – shoot them at a wall or ceiling and use them to pull yourself up or swing across gaps. You also get submachine guns that act as a sort of hover if you shoot downwards, and everything combined makes for a very nimble iPad indeed.

There’s lots of different baddies to swipe with your sword or shoot with your guns, and a few bosses (which are all surprisingly easy), which are fun too but getting around the areas is the main draw here for me, although I had to frequently refer to the map as some areas were confusing. It’s a shame there wasn’t a Metroid style mini-map on screen all the time as I think that would have helped somewhat.

I collected quite a few of the hidden items, but the game was easy enough to not need more health upgrades than I acquired, and I didn’t ever need more money than I found from just playing normally. Most of the rest of the chests that I missed I expect were useless hats – there being a lot of them in the game and aside from a bit of ridiculousness on your iPad’s head, they serve no purpose whatsoever, which was a bit disappointing. If they gave you, I dunno, higher jumps, or slower falling, or a money vacuum or something, that’d have been nice.

That aside, Kunai is a perfectly good game in the genre, that doesn’t do anything particularly special but is a lot of fun.

Nuts (iPhone): COMPLETED!

Posted on 01/04/2021 Written by deKay

I discovered that, since they added an Apple app to my TV, I could actually Airplay my iPhone screen on there, and with a PS4 controller connected via Bluetooth, I basically have another console. And then, Apple gave me another free month of Apple Arcade. And then, I spotted Nuts on there, when I was about to buy it for the Switch. So here we are.

Nuts follows you, as a squirrel researcher, setting up cameras with which to watch what the squirrels get up to. You then wind through the recorded footage, print off screengrabs of important sightings, and fax them to your boss who frequently contacts you in your caravan via phone.

At first, you simply put a camera where you’re told, watch a squirrel appear, and then move the camera to where it runs off to. As it takes the same route each night, you can effectively follow it to its den. Later levels are more complicated, with multiple squirrels, no known starting point, or having to track them backwards.

It’s a fun little game, uncomplicated and clever, and there’s a whole overarching story as to why you’re doing this research too, which adds to it. It’s only a few hours long, but it doesn’t outstay its welcome and changes things up enough to keep things interesting for that time. Also, squirrels!

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4): COMPLETED!

Posted on 31/03/2021 Written by deKay

Another PS4 game played on the PS5. I’ve not given this a go on an actual PS4 so I don’t know how much of this is the PS5, but having no loading is excellent, and it’s all in 4K and Kamurocho looks incredible.

Kiwami 2 is a remake of the original PS2 Yakuza 2 game, which I’ve never played. I knew some of the story from flashbacks in later games in the series, but none of the detail. Like the other Yakuza titles, the plot is all over the place – in a good way. People aren’t who you think they are, quite literally in several cases, and your allies have a tendency to swap sides. The story is mainly about the Korean mafia returning to Japan – having seemingly been wiped out 26 years ago – to take revenge on the Tojo Clan who killed them all on behalf of the police. More or less. Obviously, it’s not as simple as that.

As in the other Yakuzas, gameplay is a mixture of punching people in the face, and wandering round the city (well, cities – you return to Sotenbori too) finding people, places or avoiding things. There’s also the usual array of side missions, from the sensible to the nonsensical. In one, you might have to hunt down a kidnapper, but in another you’re a voice actor for a Boys Love video game. In the arcades there’s a fully working Virtua Fighter 2 machine next to the UFO Catchers, and you can play a golfing minigame, darts, or even run a hostess club should you not have enough to do in the main story. Oh! And best of all, a toilet arcade game called Toylets:

It’s Another Yakuza. It’s a very, very pretty Yakuza, and as always the voice acting and the characters are both fantastic. And, although I enjoyed it very much, if Yakuza isn’t for you then this isn’t going to change your mind.

If you want to watch my entire playthrough (bar the final chapter which Sega doesn’t let you broadcast), then you can here:

Pokémon Sword: The Crown Tundra (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on 28/03/2021 Written by deKay

The second, and presumably final, expansion pack for Pokémon Sword/Shield, The Crown Tundra is set in a mostly snowy region and involves hunting for a lot of legendary pokémon in various ways.

Peony, a character you meet at the start, gives you three main legends to look into. The first has you finding the local “new to the series” legendary – Calyrex, then finding his horse by growing a carrot. Yeah, one carrot. Calyrex doesn’t have enough power for more. You can get one of two horses, depending where you grow the carrot – an ice type or a ghost type. I went with the latter. With them reunited, the next mission is to gain entry to four mysterious temples and capture the Regi-series pokémon within. It’s a minor puzzle task to open the temples up, and then a tricky task to actually capture them without killing them and they’re all alarmingly resistant to pokéballs.

Finally, you have to capture three Galarian variants of previous game legendaries – Moltres, Zapdos and Articuno – by chasing them across both the Tundra and both previous areas in the game.

With those done (and it essentially being The End), I completed a side quest for Sonia, who wanted me to find three more legendaries by discovering 50 sets of footprints for each of Cobalion, Virizion, and Terrakion and then catching them. Again, this was difficult, especially for Cobalion as I went through over 60 Ultra Balls even while he was on virtually zero HP and was fast asleep.

And then I went into the Dynamax mine area place where it had been reported a load of Ultra Beasts (from Pokémon Sun and Moon) had appeared, and caught myself a Tapu Fini. Phew, eh?

This was definitely the better of the two DLC packs. It’s bigger, more varied, and more interesting. When are the new Diamond and Pearl remakes out, again?