It’s in a similar vein. There are new demons, quests, QoL stuff and some rebalancing changes just like in P5R. However, instead of a new chapter, Vengence added a new route through the game - revamping most of the story. (Or fixing the lack thereof.)

Currently, it’s still quite similar to vanilla SMT V, but I’ve been told it will diverge a lot more quite early. Don’t know if or how many new locations there are.

Probably Alaska then, but I have no clue which episode. These types of episodes are all jumbled together in my mind.

I think it’s the one future episode with Lisa as the POTUS, ‘the president wore pearls’.

The joke was Maggie writing a card from Antarctica, which now is a beach paradise due to global warming. If memory seerves right, there are even some penguins sonewhere in there.

Finished up Harvestella.

Overall, I really like the game. The farming and combat are both somewhat simple and the story does start out generic. However, then it speedruns a complete JRPG story within a single chapter and then throws another 5 chapters at you. The characters are fun, the world is interesting and I felt engaged throughout. Even did some more farming after I already bought everything until I hit the money cap at 999,999.

Finished Pokemon Legends Arceus!

My initial impression stands. The first area was some of thr best Pokemon I ever played. Afterwards the entire thing kind of fell apart. Too many repeated Pokemon per area; most things didn’t even reach half my level and fhe story never hooked me. The final fight against the hidden antagonist, I guess, was somewhat challanging, but I don’t think the battle system is all that fun. Sometimes, you defeat a Pokemon and the next one just gets 4 turns in before you move again (even using my fast moves!). But still, I really enjoyed that initial catching of Pokemon and think it’s woth trying.

Just yesterday, I started Shin Megami Tensei V Vengence.

I love the original SMT V, it’s one of my favorite Switch games. Having played some more SMT games since then, it does show some cracks, but I’m still having a great time and enjoy the new stuff. It’s probably best coming of Persona and I still prefer it over SMT 3 Nocturne, which I think is somewhat uncommon. (Although that’s mostly due to Nocturnes save system. On the highest difficulty, not being able to save for sometimes hours at a time really does suck when you could die from a single random encouter at any time. At full health. Without getting a turn in.)

This may not necessarily apply to you, but those 30 minutes of walking would do wonders for the overall health of your average American.

Pretty much every country except for the USA seems to be a bull shit magic fantasy land. At least when living in any kind of larger city.

VII is one of my favorites! It is quite long, yes, but it’s structured in such a way that you can easily take breaks inbetween mostly self-contained areas.

I’m still planning on going through the entire Trails series at some point, but I’m still debating on whether to play these or the originals.

On one hand, these are probably the most polished games in the series, right? Spoiling me for the rest of it. On the other hand, having played the demo for the first one, I still thought it felt somewhat awkward and clunky. Making me think I might not enjoy the originals.

What’s consensus on this? Does it make sense to start with the remakes?

Just noticed Octopath Traveler 0 is missing, I think it’s releasing today actually.

Although I still don’t know what to think of it, the first trailer gave heavy mobile energy and I never looked further.

I’ve seen this multiple times already, but I just noticed whatever the dude on the right is doing.

Yes! I’ve bought most things already, so I don’t really need the money anymore. However, it’s still fun to collect new cooking ingredients (new crops; or new ways to process them) and to finish the remaining fairy requests (grow x amount of y; unlock better skils etc.).

I didn’t even know there was a New Game option, I never play those and always start fresh instead. However, it does sound interesting in this case!

Had some slower weeks, I’m still on Harvestella. By now, I’ve done pretty much everything except playing the main story past the ‘tutorial phase’ of getting all fairies. I’ve finished most companion stories and really like them, but they aren’t as good as other people hyped them up to be. They often start in a generic way, but not all of them continue like that. There are some good twists and turns and one of them especially dropped a major hint about the upcoming story which got me pretty hyped!

Also played more Pokémon Legends: Arceus. I started the third area this week and still enjoy my journey. However, as so often in these write-ups, I went overboard at the beginning and now a lot of things are kinda trivial. I spent so much time in the first area, I left with a team around Lv 50, mostly filled with alpha Pokémon. The other areas are still fun, there is just no sense of danger anymore. In addition, I think there are too many shared Pokémon between the areas. Since I’ve fully researched them already the first time around, I find myself running past half the things in the newer areas, which is just less fun. But no point in catching a hundred more Starly or Bidoof.

To keep things a bit more fresh, I shelve my entire team each time I reach a new area - excluding my starter.

I love that game! Although I only did Frederica’s ending. It’s the morally correct one, I think, excluding the true ending, of course. I wish we had more games in that style, but there’s only this and Disgea - which dropped the ball with it’s 6 entry. Everything else on Switch is a remaster of some kind.

Anyway, hard more is weird. I’ve started on hard mode, but eventually turned it down. For some battles, you just retry them and collect EXP until you effectively play on a lower difficulty anyway. There just isn’t enough side content to do instead. Curious to see what you think if you decide on trying it.

It think it’s a lot of fun, although I tend to just focus on one thing and then is devolves into a check list. Like doing all side quests, then doing all companion quests, then all dungeons… etc. I just can’t bring myself to not do that when everything is available at once.

They finished ZA within less than a week of release, including the 1k trainer battle quest. I really mean it when I say they holed up and did nothing else for several days. Since then it’s shiny hunting.

Guess I’ll only go for the DLC if those classes/characters are really interesting, then. Or if it’s on sale when I get back to FE:TH.

On my side, more Harvestella.

I’ve automated my farm and started with some animals, which I ignored up till now. They are quite lenient. They cannot die, even if you stop feeding them. It just decreases their friendship, which reduces the quality of their stuff once you start feeding them again.

On top of that, I’ve progressed all companion stories. They are quite, but somewhat generic.

Also started Pokemon Legends Arceus just yesterday. We needed a break from Monster Hunter and it’s my partners favorite game.

Haven’t done much yet, basically just trying to do anything but what the tutorial asks of me. The usual.

The price tag doesn’t sit right we me, but I’m still interested. It’s developed by Omega Force, which also worked on Dragon Quest Builders 2, which I thought was phenomenal. Although, I’d much rather see a 3rd game of that series, this could scratch a similar itch.

I entirely forgot the Three Houses DLC, I don’t think I ever bought it. Curious to see whether you’d recommend it or not.

Anyways, I did play more Harvestella and just like announced last week, I just did a lot of farming to get filthy rich.

I also did most side quests while waiting for the days to pass. The game does this thing where almost all side quests are available at once and I always feel compelled to do them all before going back to the main story - despite knowing better. I did the same for Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth and came to regret it, since I was massively overleveled and the side quests became quite formulaic when done it quick succession. Same here, but I couldn’t help myself.

Played more Harvestella this week.

I went with the suggestion I got and ignored most of the side stuff until after the 3rd chapter, which meant a lot of dungeon crawling and not much farming. I got it done and would recommend the same to everyone else.

The story basically introduces each city and most of the companion characters, which then have their own story you can choose to follow - kinda like Persona does, without the filler events. I haven’t done much of these yet, so I still can’t say much about their overall writing. However, I can already praise the normal side quests for fleshing out minor characters. So far, a lot of characters had multiple side quests progressing their story despite them being average NPCs instead of companions with an actual friendship level. The world feels way more lived in that way.

Anyway, after all that dungeon crawling, I yearned for some farming and have been going all in on that aspect of the game. After the 3rd chapter, you can unlock many useful abilities making it easier to manage your ever growing farm. I’ll go back to the main story once I grow tired of that or once I’m filthy rich.

Just reading about it, I’m motivated to get back to Three Houses, too. I also went with the Black Eagles initially, although that was a compromise. I was in favour of joining the Golden Deer and my partner wanted the Blue Lions - both of us had the Black Eagles in second place. Never did the other routes.

Just a heads-up, you might want to keep at least two save files. While there are only three houses, there are more routes. If you do all routes back to back, you probably don’t want to play the first half of a diverging route twice.

Got any favourites already? Personally, I really enjoyed Hubert and Bernadette. Oh, and Ferdinand, too! The Black Eagles have so many standouts, I almost can’t imagine liking the other houses as much.

After mentioning it a few weeks ago, I’ve started Harvestella.

The game combines dungeon crawling and farming, with quite a bit of story in between. Everything runs on a daily timer with unlimited days, I think. Most actions consume stamina, which can be recovered by eating.

The farming is quite simple thus far. Your basic ploughing, planting, watering and harvesting. You can build a few machines to mill wheat etc. and you can also raise animals, but I’ve not yet played around with these much. There’s also a big list of achievements, like growing X amount of Y, and every few achievements, you unlock some new things.

The dungeon crawling is quite nice, too. And I found myself spending way more time in there, but this might change once my farm grows. You get a basic attack and a jumping button, that it at the beginning. Over time, you get more jobs and unlock special abilities, movement skills and passives. But overall, I think the combat system will remain quite chill. Something I got surprised by is the actual structure of dungeons: It somehow reminds me of Etrian Odyssey games. You’ve got your FOEs to work around (strong monsters to avoid) and points of interest you can interact with, that will either do you some good, some bad or both. You can unlock shortcuts, repair paths, collect stuff and find hidden treasures. Not challenging, but overall quite fun. (Mind you, I’m still at the beginning)

The writing is promising, but I can’t say much about it yet. However, I initially started the game because I got it recommended for its strong character writing.