Monthly in a Month #13: The Cake Day Edition

Reply here once done.

This event definitely started my motivation for playing my games more in general so thank you and congrats for keeping it going for a year! Just wrapping up persona 4 golden and loving it so will probably try again this month, and happy birthday to the cat ^^

The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines - beaten
Valfaris - beaten
xcom chimera squad - beaten
Warsaw - beaten
Lovecraft's untold stories - beaten
Tales of the Neon Sea - beaten

GOSH DARN IT CJ! A chance at P5S is too good to pass up, I'm getting exhausted, lol!

I was thinking of asking you how it was, haha. An action-style spin-off of Persona just sounds so much fun.

Okay, already finished a couple since this game got me so excited, haha.

• Wildfire: Story finished (Pretty fun, but NG+ seems like a letdown after the ending got me kinda excited, so I doubt I'll do much more in it)
• Snake Pass: Story finished (Got tired of getting all the collectables shortly after 20%, lol)
• Cyberhook: Done (Most of the levels were pretty fun, but several were just so annoying... Not gonna try to 3-star all of them.)
• Minoria: Finished (I was not having fun with this until I farmed up a ton of XP to be OP and not get two-shotted, haha.)
• Ageless: Finished (Can't honestly say I enjoyed this one, so much of it was just a pain, especially the bosses... The writing was pretty cringe-worthy, too.)
• Indivisible: Completed (Was pretty fun, but I was getting a little tired halfway through, so I decided to skip some of the other recruits and side-quests.)
• WWE 2K Battlegrounds: Almost done with Campaign (Campaign got soo annoying and frustrating when it starts making you face opponents way stronger than your characters, so I gave up. I might still enjoy the local MP, which was what I was mostly wanting from it, but too frustrated with it currently...)

I'm finally going to give this a shot! Here's my plan:

Notes
03 March - Completed The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
06 March - Finished Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
17 March - Completed Finding Paradise
22 March - Finished Mr. Shifty
23 March - Added Lara Croft Go

I like doing these, but I feel like I should somehow play Persona 5 before doing this event

hmmm

XCOM: Chimera Squad - March 2021 Choice - done
Little Nightmares - September 2018 Monthly - done
Warhammer: Chaosbane - January 2021 Choice - done
Ageless - March 2021 Choice - unfinished
Not Tonight - January 2021 Choice - unfinished

would this game be enjoyable to a non-weeb? i like jrpgs, but the anime aspect isn't anything special to me, i could take it or leave it. i enjoyed games like the '.hack' series and 'catherine' if that helps. i've been doing these monthly events for so long that it'd feel weird to sit one out. i'd feel bad about winning a $60 game and having it go to waste though.

It's quite tempting but i'm not sure if i can do it this month, too many games to play, hahah. Maybe i'll skip this month.
okay, i'll give it a try.

I foolishly distracted myself in February, but hope to return for this one.

Thank you for the full year of encouraging us to beat some games

edit: nvm didn't do this month 😩

Not sure if I'll enter the GA because I do have a lot of games to play, even though I'm working the backlog thanks to you CJ.
Still, I'll participate in the even regardless because I wouldn't know how to even pick games to play without you and PAGYW so thanks for keeping the motivation alive.

Alright so I decided on a few games. I'm playing Ghostrunner first (thank you CJ!) so I think I'll be going for light and fluffy next but oh wait... never mind :P

Soooo Immortal Redneck took me way way longer than expected. Thanks for nothing HLTB with your bum estimates :P but it was a blast.
Just not sure I'll have enough time for 5 other games this month though. It's going to be tight.

Decided on Outlast 2 next, which probably wasn't a good idea since I already have trouble sleeping. Wow. Freaky freaky game. I rushed through this one a little because I couldn't wait to get to the end. I'm definitely not a big fan of that type of horror game.

Had to follow up with something colorful and fluffy to wash my brain from Outlast so went with Wandersong. Much much deeper than I was expecting, and a little dark in story at times but a really fun experience with refreshing game mechanics that were really well used. I was kinda worried it would get repetitive but it didn't. The game also had lots of fun nuggets here and there if you take your time and talk to all the characters, which hmmm took me longer than expected so I'm going to scratch my initial choices and go for shorter games to finish the month.

And since I was all happy and fluffy, I went for Still There aaaaand.... who's crying? I'm not crying, you're crying! Almost forgot to do a screenshot of the credits because I was fumbling for tissues. Don't play it if you are too proud to cry in front of your screen. But hmm yeah besides the story, which is good, and well told, the gameplay was a bit random at times. Lots of menial tasks and fixing things which come in 5 or 6 steps. It felt tedious and I probably wouldn't have stuck with it if I hadn't felt so hooked by the overall story.

Truberbrook was better than expected. It's a really pretty game with a good heart and humor and a touching story. I was surprised to see it had a mixed score on Steam. I guess it has a little too much of an "indie movie" feel to it. Some underdeveloped characters, slow burn kind of pace, maybe too much existential undertone for some, I don't know. I'll play it again (actually wanted to keep the other ending for my next playthrough but the end I got first bummed me so much, I had to reload and go through the other one instead)

Frog Detective 2 was really really to make up for lost time. Read it was better than the first one. Guess it must have been an April's fools joke.

Happy birthday to the cat! :D
Thanks again for doing this CJ! <3
Tentative game list for this period

Control was a blast. I really enjoyed the mechanics and I do agree with people calling it a 3D metroidvania. It definitely feels like it fits the bill for that.
Also, (Control spoiler) The fake out credits screen was a trip. I didn't think the hedron sequence was the end, but I was not expecting that
The Frog Detective games continue to charm me as cute and funny bits. Too short, but still a nice and light-hearted experience.
Iris and the Giant was a game that made me feel more than I expected, not including frustration at the difficulty of it. Great story and a pretty cool deckbuilder.
Path of Giants was a pretty fun puzzle game. A bit too easy overall, but a pretty relaxing game and I enjoyed it.
Wandersong was absolutely adorable. Super interesting mechanically with almost no traditional style combat. Some of the platforming was tedious in execution, but overall, I absolutely adored it.
Youropa was interesting. It's a puzzle platformer, but the controls were awkward and the gimmick didn't feel complete. Honestly, if they had given more abilities to start with instead of a very slow progression, I think the game could've been a lot better. Still, it wasn't bad, but just felt like the initial concept was sound, but the nerfed the character too much to do less than they could've.

Reviews:

Oh well this ruins my plan for the month but I will actually enter, will give me an excuse to start persona 4

Should I write the games I'm going to play before I play them? Or can I inform you already upon completion?

I can't believe it's already been a year. I've been having so much fun with this event and it changed my gaming habits quite a bit. As always, thank you so much!

Hooray! Second time around!

Update #1 (13 March): Beaten Control. Fantastic game!
Update #2 (14 March): Beaten Orwell.
Update #3 (21 March): Beaten Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.
Update #4 (22 March): Beaten State of Mind.
Update #5 (30 March): Beaten Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
Update #6 (4 April): Beaten Eliza. Screenshots with the final scene before the credits, and the start screen which changes when you finish the game. Challenge completed.

Happy cakeday bump!

Finished Path of Giants. Next I think I'll play the sequel to that Frog Detective game that Fluffster loved so much last month... 😅
Frog Detective 2 is quite charming, and incredibly short 😁
Control is great. Although I enjoyed the story/lore and atmosphere a lot more than the combat, such that the infinitely respawning enemies became quite tedious... 😣
Finding Paradise turned out pretty well after a bit of a weak start, maybe I would have been more into it if I'd played the first one 😏
Still There is excellent, very well written, although I don't think I completely understood it 🤔
(Hard Reset Redux is bad, gonna give up on that one 😒)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York is pretty good. I don't normally play/read visual novels but the world of VtM has always intrigued me (I never quite got around to trying the "proper" games Redemption or Bloodlines)

Black The Fall - Feb 2018 - done
Sigma Theory: Global Cold War - Jul 2020 - done
GRIP: Combat Racing - Jan 2020 - done
The Stillness of the Wind - Jun 2020 - done
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War - May 2020 - done
Void Bastards - Jul 2020 - done