Life never goes the way you expect. I was planning to play Tokyo Xanadu eX+ and some other PC games, all off my laptop. Then my laptop suddenly stopped booting. Won’t respond to all the common fixes. It seems like the hard drive is okay, so there’s a good chance I’ll be able to copy the data off, but until I get round to having it seen to, PC games are out. Next time I should think about backing up not only my important files but also my game savefiles. =_=

Anyway, since my plans were thrown out of the window, I’ve been in a funk (read: sulking) so I’ve been playing Genshin Impact and Picross e8 instead of making new plans. Good old Picross, it won’t betray me. Or at least I’m already used to my 3DS acting up so I won’t feel anything if it decides to go AWOL right when I need it.

Yah so anyway, Genshin Impact update in lieu of anything better to post. Last time I posted, I said I hadn’t achieved anything worthy of note or explored the depths of the game system. Many, many hours later, I’ve done a lot of things, including:

• Domains – they’re just dungeons with DPS checks where you grind/refuse to grind for artifacts (accessories) and materials to level up your weapons.
• Explored Liyue and Mondstadt quite thoroughly. At least I’ve touched all the Statues of the Seven and unlocked all the Teleport Waypoints and picked up a ton of Geo and Anemo oculi.
• Finished the story event in Mondstadt, currently investigating a murder mystery in Liyue (there was another stealth mission, but I just dashed right to the goal, ha). But I can’t go any further because I need to be Adventurer Rank (AR) 29 to continue and I’m capped at AR25 until I do a quest to raise the level.
• Got the hang of gliding after jumping to my doom way too many times. Unless there’s a windcurrent, you don’t need to jump to glide. Just walk off the edge and immediately press X (PS4 controller). Took me way too long to figure that out.
• Ignored all limited time events because they sound like a hassle. And the rewards are an insult. There’s a delivery event with a daily reward of 60 primogems. 60. When you need 160 for a single pull. Ha. Bite me, Mihoyo.

After playing so much more than before, I’ve gotten used to the battle system. It’s still a bit messy, but in a fun-ish kind of way. Definitely starting to grow on me, especially when I trigger useful elemental reactions. I especially enjoy using Barbara to wet enemies and then freezing them with Kaeya.

The level cap at AR25 is a good time to review my parties, weapons and artifacts so I can tackle tougher domains and events. I don’t have any gacha characters except Chongyun and Sucrose, which is a bit sad, but I’ll do my best with what I have while stockpiling Primogems for the next banner. It would be painful to pour all those EXP tomes into free characters who are destined to be tossed aside, but that’s a mobile game for you. Even the current gacha characters will be powercreeped in due time.

My to-do list for the next couple of days (gamewise): raise 3 or 4 characters past level 40, raise their weapons past level 40, give them the best artifacts and level those up as well, then undo the level cap and raise the world level to 2, then do enough sidequests to reach AR29 and continue the story.

Aight, so if you don’t see me for the next two weeks, that’s what I’m working on.