What the title said. I haven’t dropped Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I’ve just been too busy with real life stuff to really get stuck in. But somehow I can always make time for casual games and gacha games, because they’re just designed with the busy person in mind. Of course they’re designed to steal the time of the busy person, but the important thing is you can get in and get your fix and get out in 15-20 minutes or less, whereas I have to play at least an hour of XC3 to feel like I’ve really done anything. Of course by the time you’re done spending 15-20 minutes on four different gacha games, that hour will have already elapsed, but to quote a famous mangaka, I don’t think about that and neither should you.
Doesn’t hurt that I already can’t remember what I was last doing in XC3… Saving… something? Oh yeah, I was doing sidequests instead of going to… that place… to stop… that guy. Ah yeah… That game is great for the exploration, and I enjoy the sidequests, but the rest of it… Anyway, I’m still busy with work until mid-October at the earliest, but I’ll try to make time on the weekends to finish Xenoblade 3 so I can play other things on my Switch. I’m almost out of Picross games too, S8 when?
Genshin Impact, I just popped in for the anniversary rewards. And I hadn’t logged in for a while so they gave me some returner bonuses to keep me logging in. This is like the 4th or 5th time they’ve given me this stuff, you’d think they would just stop bothering but hey, free primos without having to do tedious events, yay. While I’m at it I’m progressing the archon quest so I don’t have to tiptoe around spoilers. And I’d like to unlock all the waypoints so I can zoom around the map easily, but man, Sumeru is HUGE. It’s going to take days to unlock everything, which I don’t have the energy for, so for now I’ll focus on this archon quest thing. Nahida is so cute, can’t wait to pull her.
Counterside – Yet another gacha game. I heard there were free pulls and that the game isn’t all “girls girls girls girls girls” but actually has useful and relevant male characters, so I gave it a try. Today is my… fourth? fifth day? I’m not too impressed with the combat, which I just auto 90% of the time, but the story is pretty interesting and the translation/localization is very well done.
Good translation is important. Don’t let anyone bamboozle you with “Just be grateful you’re getting to play it” crap. How the story reads has a big effect on how it is received. Bad translation is a waste of money and time and an insult to everyone involved. I felt that anew when I played the latest event in Love Nikki. The game is notorious for its slipshod translations, but this time they got someone competent to do the Flying Bird story translations. The result was like night and day – the event stories were actually interesting, easy to follow and even moving, in Neva and Shade’s cases. I almost wondered if I was playing a different game by accident.
But back to Counterside. I’m enjoying it apart from the fact that it crashes every five or ten minutes. Every game on my phone crashes every five to ten minutes, actually. I’d like a new phone, but it runs everything else just fine and isn’t that old, so I can’t justify an expensive new phone just for gacha games I might drop soon. Oh yeah, Counterside also crashes and hangs permanently and has to be reinstalled whenever I try to join a raid. Maybe I should get a new phone after all…
Anyway, since I just started CS, I’ll let some time pass first before writing some proper review-ish type thoughts on it. That’s enough of an update from me for one day. Back to work!
Damn, your XC3 screenshots make me give the game another chance. I wanna roam these landscapes, and feast my eyes on these gorgeous blu-ish hues!
The tempo of automatic attacks rubbed me the wrong way, sure; but now that I know what to expect, maybe I could get used to it?
At any rate, my gaming instinct doesn’t wanna forget that game for some reason. I always listen to the gaming instinct, so I’ll give XC3 an honest second chance before selling it. It’s decided then! 😁
It’s a feast for fantasy open world lovers. The auto-battling always throws me off at first, but it’s fun in its own way once you get used to it.
Your website seems to be down, btw.