Hello and welcome to the monthly digest series!

Well, some things keep happening IRL, which in turn demand a lot of my mental budget. So, this month is a little less diverse, but gives me the opportunity to talk about some lingering titles, which don´t have an ending or simply cannot be finished (reasonably).

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Monthly Bounty

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Really cool monthly theme, love old games from the DOS era. From a professional standpoint, these games lay the groundwork for nearly all modern titles. A lot to see, how they experimented with game-mechanics and controls, evolution of graphics and themes.

Unfortunately, I only got to play one game and couldn´t finish on time:

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Crusader: No Remorse

PC/Windows - Origin/EA App
Unfinished/On Pause
Time at writing: 1h 32mh
(temporarily) Rating: 7 out of 10

A really interesting game with gorgeous pixel graphics. One of the games, which landed on my country's banned list in 1997 and was delisted in 2014. It sports a clean, high fidelity pixel look and offers cool animations (Some pretty gruesome). They tried to tell a pretty run-of-the-mill Spec Ops guy who leaves his unit to join the resistance plot. Buuuut, they show that in little movieclips. Yes, I suspect the developers did throw themselves in costume, filmed themselves in front of a greenscreen and added the gameworld around them. IT IS AMAZING.

On the other hand, the controls are horrendously outdated. You walk around with the arrow keys, with up and down being forward and backwards, while left and right are turning the character. The term "Tank-Controls" comes to mind. But it doesn´t end there. To shoot you need to ready your weapon first. Aiming the gun is 70% aim in the general direction and get the auto aim on target or, in 30% of cases, shoot where your rectangle is and be amazed that nearly all shots miss the target. Why the auto target doesn´t work sometimes is still a mystery to me, but it is what it is.

Definitely going back to finishing this, but I couldn´t stomach the bad controls at the moment.

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Generic Bountys

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By sheer luck, I happen to have a girlfriend who really got into Baldur's Gate III. :)

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Baldur's Gate III

PC/Windows - Steam
Unfinished
Time at writing: 6h
(temporarily) Rating: 8.5 out of 10

My girlfriend loves this game (103h in like 3 weeks) and there is a reason for it. The maps are huge, there is a lot to do, the combat system is pretty robust and rewards you for "thinking-outside-the-box" solutions. All your companions are interesting and the replayability, due to the branching narrative, seems unusually high.

At 6h I am just getting my feet wet and haven´t even left the first village. But generally speaking, it looks and feels like a great game already, even though it does have some flaws.

First off, I did play Divinity: Original Sin, and Divinity: Original Sin 2 and think that they are similar to Baldur's Gate III, so I do use them to compare them to highlight some issues.

The combat system between those games is pretty much the same, but it got tweaked for Baldur's Gate to fit the D&D Pen and Paper playstyle. In Divinity you have action points. They are used for attacking, casting magic or moving around, which gives the player a huge number of options. Baldur's Gate diverts that in three standalone mechanics, you have one Action, one Bonus Action and a fixed bar which tells you how far you can move, which feels restricting. But even more restricting is the fact that your spells and special combat moves are also limited. Using a rush move with your lance? One time use, after that you need to make a small rest. You have like 6 low level spells? Well, you are level 3 and have only 3 spell uses before you need to rest again.

Now, if that system was inside Divinity, could you beat the hordes of enemies you face on a regular basis? Yes, but it would be nearly impossible. Did they change the number of enemies in Baldur's Gate to account for that? ... No, no they didn´t. Divinity was hard, but Baldur's Gate is, in my opinion, a lot harder. The only thing which saves you from utter defeat is that the AI is not abusing the gamemechanics like they do in Divinity. Btw, opponents do have access to the same abilities/spells/combat moves that the player can use, but they are always fresh with their charges, so even more difficulty.

Pro Tip: Keep your F5 in mind to basically mash at every opportunity, not for savescumming but for normal saving. Autosaves are rare and far between with no option of increasing the frequency, which is a big no no for a game released in 2023 with that kind of difficulty. (Looking fondly at Armored Core 6)

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Challenges

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At the moment, I challenge myself to play all games ever released by Namco or Bandai or Namco Bandai for the Xbox platforms.
Here the Games List. (freshly updated)

Sitting at 4 Games finished from 127.

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Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

PC/Windows - Steam
Unfinished
Time at writing: 15h 45m
(temporarily) Rating: 9 out of 10

Another pretty tough game, but from a different angle. Armored Core VI gameplay is simply breathtaking. Fast-paced mecha combat with really cool weapons and boss fights. From Software really put their expertise on showcase here and put it a small step over my Baldurs Gate III experience.

It is crazy, it is explosive and it feels so good to beat the boss you have tried for the last three hours. If you don´t like the gameplay, you should skip this game because it carries the game to outer-space and back.

The only complaint is that some bosses feel a bit "misplaced". For example, there is a boss which uses shields, which are commonplace later, but at the time you are expected to beat him, there is only one (really bad) weapon against that. It leaves you no playroom for builds except for that weapon, which is not fun.

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Little Nightmares

PC/Windows - Steam
Unfinished
Time at writing: 38m
(temporarily) Rating: 3 out of 10

Well, I took a short dive into Little Nightmares and I must say I am not impressed. From friends and rumours on the internet I heard a lot of good things about this game. To my surprise, I don´t like it. For me, the gameplay is too simple and plain, the atmosphere doesn´t catch me and the monsters look boring. Will return later for the challenge, but right now it bores me pretty hard.

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Misc Games

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Still nibbling away on some games from last month and played some lingering ones.

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Dwarf Fortress

PC/Windows - Steam
Lingering
Time at writing: 135h 55m
Rating: 7 out of 10

Dwarf Fortress is one of these lingering games without a real ending. Since they released the premium version on Steam I find myself dipping in and out from time and time. Surprisingly simple and, at the same time, unbelievably complex. Making fortresses, building them up and seeing them fall is fun. Every playthrough adds more lore to the randomized gameworld you play in and creates this feeling of legacy.

Of course, not everything is rosy. You can feel the old engine being overwhelmed in the background, resulting in crashes, errors and other unintended weirdness. They are working on updating the engine as we speak but it´ll take some time so, don´t wait on that.

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Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Switch
Unfinished
Time at writing: 33h 25m
(temporarily) Rating: 9 out of 10

Still working on Legends Arceus and still having a blast. Even though completing the Pokedex entry for Togepi feels like a rare mineral hunt. Haven´t figured out why they refuse to spawn. :(

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Pokémon Quest

Switch
Unfinished
Time at writing: 10h 4m
(temporarily) Rating: 3 out of 10

Against my wildest dreams, the game continues to push the brakes. Now we are at a point where it feels like no progress is made anymore. Still like 4-5 more areas to go but it is sucking out my soul.

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Community Content

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This month there where five blog posts made, with moho_00 being the author of nearly everyone of them. But here are my picks:

iambl33
Time to clear out this backlog

Again welcome to Completionator and good luck on your adventures. :)

moho_00
Backlog Journey 2023 #17 - Alien Crush Returns

A weird Pinball game with interesting graphics, worth a read.

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End Word

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Well, here we are. Another month, another digest.

I am thinking on maybe streaming my gaming adventures to twitch in the future but I am not sure yet. Also, going into some hard times IRL this month so, I guess not as much time for gaming but what can you do.

If there are any suggestions for this series feel free to comment. :)

The same as last time, thanks for reading and see you lot next month.