End of the year!

This will most probably be the last weekly thread for this year. Next Friday will be 26th, so the weekly thread will be back on 2nd Jan (or if something comes up, 9th Jan)!

Now, without further ado!

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Finished Dark Souls Remastered !

Spent the whole weekend playing it and finally finished it! Ornstein and Smough, the boss I was stuck on last to last week, were probably the hardest boss in the game. Only thing that came close was a boss in DLC, Kalameet, an optional boss, but it was also a tough one. Rest of the bosses were much easier.

I would like to reiterate that if you are staying away from soulslike games because of their reputation, ignore that and give them a try. You just need to a bit deliberate in how you play them. Use a guide if you want, to get used to how the game works, but these are fun games. As for dying, I have probably died more times in a single Mario level then whole sections of Dark Souls. Of course, nothing wrong with it if you don’t like the genre, just don’t want people to ignore them because of the over hyped difficulty.

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After finishing that, didn’t feel like starting anything new, so went back to Princess Peach Showtime and finished that.

When I played it the first time I gave it a very bad review, but saw my daughter playing it later, and some of the stages looked fun. Not AAA game kind of fun, but a mobile mini-game kind of fun, which suited my current mood. So went ahead, cleared all the levels and finished the game.

Didn’t try for 100%, if you miss a collectible you can’t just backwards in the level and collect it, you have to replay the whole level. So ignored that completely. Game is too expensive for what it is, but if you can get it at a very good bargain, then not a bad game for little kids who like Princess Peach.

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With those two wrapped up, and after the new Mega Man announcement, I wanted to give the series another try (tried them once a long time ago but found them super hard so never tried again), so after some suggestions from the wonderful people here, I decided to go with the published order and got the Mega Man Legacy Collection .

Played (and finished) Mega Man 1 and 2.

These games are hard, specially the first one, but the bosses were interesting so had fun fighting them, though I had to make extensive use of Rewind feature to stay alive. Specially in final bosses sequence. You fight multiple bosses back to back without any healing in between. Would have died over half a dozen times if not for Rewind.

Next was Mega Man 2. It is such an upgrade from the first game, I had to confirm it was still a NES game and not a SNES one. It was much easier than the first one, but still not an easy game. Another set of interesting bosses, and some extensive use of Rewind still required, though I like to think I got a bit better by the time I reached the end.

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This is pretty much what I played the last whole week. I did start two new games, but I have just started them so can’t say much about them yet.

Started Assassin’s Creed: Rogue Remastered. Wanted to get it on Switch, but it’s only available in a bundle with AC: Black Flag, and since I have already played that, didn’t want to buy that again. So got it on PS5, and playing through it now. Have only played couple of hours yet though.

On Switch, I have been itching to play Skyrim again, was planning to spend dozens of hours in that, but then decided to start Risen . It’s remaster of 2009’s RPG, originally developed by Pirhana Bytes, developers of Gothic series. I loved Gothic, but never played Risen, or any other game from them, and it has been on my wishlist for so long, so it was a good moment to start that. I have only played an hour or so and the only complaint I have is that jump is on R3, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to rebind the keys. Other than that, it’s scratching that do-anything-RPG itch of Skyrim.

Will probably have more to say about these next time.

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What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?