What remains of Edith Finch

Got it free on the Epic store (yeah, go on, hate me!).

It's a visual novel with very much no replay value, unless I unexpectedly missed some content, which I think I didn't. I can't tell much of the plot except that you're Edith Finch, 17 yo, and you're back to your old home, a strange monster of a building on a windy coast. There, you'll learn more about your family.

Gameplaywise, you can't remap the controls, so I ended up playing with the arrows, not the best. But it doesn't matter much, as there is no "action" in that "game". There is no way to "lose", either, I think. You're not there to "win", but to be told a story.

And it succeeds at telling stories. It's the occasions for the creators to try different art styles, different narrative techniques, and most of the time it works. I personnally felt that many of the stories could have been longer, especially since the whole game is around 2h long. But at least you can complete it in one go, which can make for a good reading on a slow day.

What remains of Edith Finch is an interesting VN and was exactly what I needed right now, not being able to focus on longer games. So, thanks, Epic Store!

So far in 2019: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2019/post24

FoxTail (Chapter Two)

This is an "In Development" game, only the first two chapters have been released so far.

I played the first chapter last year, and this chapter is more of the same, although I did find it to be shorter and a bit easier.

Overall though it's still a very mellow and relaxing point-and-click adventure, and I do still recommend it if such things appeal to you and you don't mind the fact that the game isn't complete yet.

Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness

Kind of emotional since I first played it 13+ years ago, but never finished just because I didn't know about manual targeting on a certain boss; now over a decade later I finally finished it. And honestly I still had some fun with it despite the game being so old. Real shame this is what caused Core Design to go under, because I quite like some aspects of the game (though maybe because I played with many fixes) and would have been interested to see what Lara did after the events of this game.

(Also I can say I've played through all the "original" Tomb Raiders, though I did use health and weapon cheats for some)

Definitely not as hard as previous Tomb Raiders and I liked that. The main annoying thing were the controls - how Lara always bumps into everything and stops completely, problems with keys, Lara not grabbing or grabbing the wrong ledge, stuff like that. But I liked the locations (honestly never liked the "tombs" in Tomb Raider tbh; preferred outdoor levels), some of the actions set pieces, Kurtis, Lara's bosoms... yeah

Special shoutout to Peter Connolly for the fantastic music he created for the game, and of course Nathan McCree's timeless theme. I don't think the original theme was used in the reboot (could be wrong), which is a shame since it's a pretty powerful theme and emotional for those of us who grew up on early Tomb Raiders (for me it was the Tomb Raider 2 demo, 3, and of course AoD)

I was going to use me complete all the Tomb Raider games on GOG as an excuse to politely bug Square Enix about getting Legend and Anniversary here, but I think I'm done gaming for some time now. It's addictive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL0HOi-km2M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gZrnEARFeA

Marie's Room

It's free on Steam. The game is a bite sized walking sim, very much in the vein of Gone Home. It has a concise story, is confined to a small but detailed location, and has 2 primary goals: interact with all the hotspots to fill out the journal, and solve the combination lock puzzle from clues in the room to trigger the end game cutscene.

It's a less than an hour long diversion, lovingly made, and a nice addition to the walking sim cannon.

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I called it a "visual novel" due to a lack of better words. I mean, there's (to my knowledge) only one path in that story, you can't miss it, you can't miss anything and basically you just have to follow the story and click at the right moment. Well, there's one or two moments there's a more complex control scheme, but that's quite rare, in fact.

Still a very good "game", anyway :)

So no puzzles you could get stuck on?

None that I have met. Yes, the game never directly explains to you what to do, but you can guess it pretty easily, anyway. And it's not puzzles as in "how to solve this enigma", but as in "what action do I have to do to continue the story"

I just finished replaying The first Force Unleashed on PSP.

Ultrawings (PSVR)

This game is a cross between a flight simulator and an arcade flight game. I believe it calls itself an accessible flight simulator, which is not too far off the mark. It is certainly very possible to stall your aircraft and/or crash due to poor manoeuvering so you need to keep an eye on your airspeed and fuel level (which is not something you’d find in a purely arcade flight game), but neither is it a full simulator.

The game consists of various “jobs” you need to complete for money, these are mostly flying through rings but also include popping balloons, landing on targets, and taking photos. For many of the jobs, you need to start up your aircraft, take off from an airport, complete the job, and then land back at the airport afterwards (often within a limited time), with more money earned the better your rating (Gold, Silver, Bronze). As you earn money, you unlock more jobs by purchasing new airports in different regions and new airplanes. Unfortunately, the difficulty of the jobs is all over the place, some I could easily get Gold on the first try, whereas others took dozens of tries to even get Bronze. There are well over 100 jobs (probably over 200), the game took me many many hours to complete.

Overall it’s a fun game, but best played in short doses because it can get repetitive. If think you'd enjoy flying an airplane in VR I'd certainly recommend it!

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter

I fell absolutely in love with these with the FC, and SC was so much better. Such twists, engaging dialogues, small details in interactions depending on how do you carry out stuff, who do you bring... both fun and seriousness, beautifuly woven.
Can't wait to 100% it and jump on the Third one, and then... On to Trails of Cold Steel.

It just keeps giving.

Keep them coming GOG.

Heads up with CS. It is... different. More teenage angst, more militaristic, more "DLC-mania".

So I noticed... that it got a bunch of DLC for various stuff such as clothes, items and whatnot... not a fan of those honestly, and back then they would come along with the purchase, but whatever.

Wouldn't it make more sense to play them after TitS? I thought they were related, or so I've read, so I don't want to miss out stuff explained on TitS happening on CS.

Perhaps I should just play them and leave the achievement hunting for later?

The experience itself is quite different, in part because of the change of setting. Still worth playing, and an interesting continuation of plot events set in motion during TitS but I didn't really get the same sense of wonder when playing CS1.

You will run into some people you've met in TitS, but none are playable in the first chapter, so not a big deal. The main story itself is easier to follow and contextualize if you've played TitS, but they provide enough for people unfamiliar with the series.

So, basically, either approach works. I'd just remember both games have a significantly different feel, and CS is much darker that TitS.

I see. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

I'll keep your words in mind: although I'll stick to my original plan of clearing TitS first, I'll leave the achievement hunting for later. That way I'll have something to do while waiting for CSIII.