Gamelog – April 2025 Update 🎮
It's been awhile since I've written gamelogs on this blog. I've been too busy playing and just do not have enough time to blog. Still I wanted to put out an update, if only to prevent me from falling further behind on my backlog of gamelogs to post. I'm going to do it a bit differently this time. Instead of the usual one post per gamelog format, I'm going to bundle them together in this one big post. I'll add some quick links below so you can get to the game you're interested in.
But first, some random thoughts on videogames at the moment.
It feels pretty good to be an Xbox Gamepass subscriber right now. Not only did The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remaster become available to play right after Bethesda shadow dropped the game, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was available on Gamepass one day after. I know everyone is talking about the Oblivion Remaster, but I will argue that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the game to play.
Also Path of Exile 2 is a great game! I did not include gamelogs for it in this post, but will do so in my next post.
Also my brother let me borrow his unused Playstation 4. I finally got to play Gran Turismo 7 for the first time ever and oh man I've missed the feel of Gran Turismo games.
Now with that out of the way, here are the links to the gamelogs (in no particular order) included in this post:
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Diablo III
- Guild Wars 2
- Elden Ring
- Skyrim
- Avowed
- Minecraft
- Octopath Traveler II
- Gran Turismo 7
- Fallout 4
- NBA 2K24
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Need to travel east of the Expedition 68 flag. There’s a path out there in the open space, that goes up high. Need to explore it before continuing west of the Expedition 68 flag.
By the way this is a great game. Feels like playing a Final Fantasy game. From the character designs, to the character names, the cutscenes, the cinematography, the beauty of the world, down to the armor design and outfits, this game feels very much inspired by Final Fantasy games.
Lune and Gustave
I am very intrigued by the story.
It seems like the people are trapped in an island. Every year, people of a certain age, vanish, disappear, very similar to how people vanished when Thanos snapped his finger in Avengers Infinity War. This happens whenever a new year starts.
There is a big number that can be seen on the horizon that supposedly indicates the year since the fracture; the cataclysmic event that set things into motion. They call it a monolith calendar in the game. It basically indicates what year it is since the fracture, but it is counting down from 100. The game is titled Expedition 33, because the game starts right as the monolith calendar goes from 34 to 33, and the characters you play are part of the 33rd Expedition.
The people on the island choose to either live their lives until it’s their time to disappear, or they choose to join Expeditions.
Expeditions are basically a bunch of people going out in an attempt to find the Paintress; the one who paints the number on the horizon every time a new year starts. They think that if they are somehow able to stop the Paintress from painting a new number, they can stop people from vanishing.
Everyone thinks it’s the Paintress who is the bad guy, but after a couple of hours in the game, I’m starting to think she’s not the evil one in this game.
The game is a turn based RPG, however they've added some action elements to it, by having you react to certain events in battle. For instance, the game is paused while you decide what to do during a characters turn. However, if you decide to use a skill, the game gives you an option to press a button during the skill animation that will boost the effectiveness of your skill. In addition, and probably more important, is that during enemy attacks, you are allowed to dodge and parry the enemy attacks. So, no longer are you watching your character simply take a hit. Now even during the enemy's turn, you are still an active participant and need to defend your characters from enemy attacks. This is great, because it makes turn based games more viable. No longer do you have to stare at your character and feel helpless as they get hit. Now you can do something about it.
I don't know if this is the first game that implemented this, but I love this mechanic. It revolutionizes turn based RPGs.
I remember Square Enix saying that the reason they moved away from turn based combat in their newer games, is that the more life-like their characters get, the more absurd it is to watch them do battle in turn based combat. This fixes it. Now Square Enix can no longer use that excuse. With this combat system in place, it feels more like a real fight, even if it is still in a turn based combat system.
Current level as of 2025-04-26
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
Played this on Day One when Bethesda shadow dropped this game, thanks to Gamepass. The graphics are obviously, much better than the original, which came out 20 years ago. It is using Unreal Engine 5 and it is unsurprisingly running into performance issues. Still, it is a good looking game and looks much better than vanilla Skyrim, which is also an older game. The game's graphics actually remind me a lot of Avowed. But I will say the world in Avowed looked better, with much less performance issues than this Oblivion Remaster.
Finally out of the prison!
The combat in this remastered game is... okay. I feel like Avowed has now set a new standard for first person melee combat. Still it is okay, but the more I engaged in melee combat, the more I wished I had the Avowed combat system in this game. Maybe I'm too early in the game and it gets better as I level up my skills. I don't know, but this is simply my first impressions of the game.
Diablo III
Finally finished Diablo III today (2025-03-15). Bonus was having my kids join me for the final fight against Malthael.
I have found that this is one of the best local co-op games to play with kids. Yes there is a lot of violence and blood in the game, however the game's graphics are “cartoony” enough that I don't think it's that big of a deal. And the story, dialogue and cutscenes are more PG oriented compared to the R rated ones from Diablo IV.
Anyway, you can play up to 4 players in local co-op mode. And it is so easy to join and leave a gaming session. The game will auto adjust the difficulty depending on how many players are playing the game, without even having to restart the mission. The game even lets you send other players a “gift”, which adds to the social nature of the game.
Guild Wars 2
Today (2025-03-08) was the first time ever that I got to play Guild Wars 2 with my eldest son. It was fun going back to Tyria doing the lowbie stuff. I even joined him for one of his story quests.
Just noting down that my current focus should be on completing an exotic armor set for my Thief character. He currently needs level 80 exotic chest and leg armor.
Elden Ring
After playing more of Elden Ring, I've come to realize that this is a game where you really need to be careful to avoid dying. This is because when your character dies, you lose runes (which is what you need to level up). You are given a chance to retrieve the runes after you resurrect. However, if you die again, those runes are gone. So with that in mind, and considering how I keep dying in this game, I have started to change the way I play. I now pay attention to how close I am to leveling up, and if I am, I pick and choose my fights so that if I end up dying, it happens in a place where it is easy for me to retrieve my runes.
At times, I would fight the same enemy over and over (by resting at a Site of Grace, which re-spawns the enemies), until I get enough runes to level up. After I level up, I then venture out farther to explore the world.
I also use this tactic before going into major boss fights. If I am close to leveling up, I will farm for runes and get myself leveled up before doing the boss fight. That way, even if I die in the boss fight, I'm not worried about losing all my runes.
I've also realized that by blindly following the direction the Sites of Grace markers point to, I end up in areas of the world where the enemies are stronger than me. Sure I kind of move the story forward this way, but I'm also dying all the time in these new areas, because the enemies are much stronger than me, not to mention they are have all new attack patterns I am not familiar with.
So I've actually gone back to the part of the map where I started (Limgrave), and started exploring there. I found a dungeon near the Church of Elleh that I didn't know was there. Ended up fighting this Beastman of Azula boss. That was a tough fight, until I finally got familiar with that enemy's attacks.
Going further east from Gatefront Ruins, I ended up finding Wayfront Ruins. This place had some kind of underground cellar that had a boss waiting for me, Mad Pumpkin Head. That fight wasn't that hard.
I noticed that going Northwest on the map, led to much tougher enemies, but going East, not so much. So I'll probably stay on this path and level up along the way.
Before going back to the are where I started the game, I purchased a Spear from one of the merchants at the Roundtable Hold. The spear is great because of its quick attack and reach, however I did notice that my Block Counter attacks miss more often. This is because the spear attacks are in a straight line. And so if the enemy moves to your right or left, your Block Counter attack will miss. Contrast this to a Block Counter attack using a Broadsword, where the swing of your sword usually catches enemies even as they strafe to the side. The spear though does have a nice Skill, the Impaling Thrust, which is easy to use against enemies.
Skyrim
So I am struggling to defeat Malkoran in Skyrim, in the Dawnbreaker quest. Apparently, the quest is meant for level 20 and up characters. My character is what, level 13 or 14? I toned down the difficulty, from Adept to Apprentice. I managed to kill Malkoran, but lost Lydia in the process. So I'm not satisfied with that. I'll drop it down to the easiest difficulty and hopefully get to defeat Malkoran while keeping Lydia alive. It sucks that the game didn't tell me at all how difficult the quest was going to be, but it could also be due to me being a Skyrim noob.
I bought Skyrim Anniversary Edition a few days ago (2025-03-02). I already had the game installed via the Skyrim available on Xbox Gamepass. After buying the Anniversary Edition and making sure it is installed, I found that I could not download any of the Creation Club content available in the Anniversary Edition. The solution I found on YouTube is to clear out your reserved space on your Xbox and restart the game. That will allow you to download the Anniversary Edition content.
Also started new playthrough, character is Alexio. I'm doing a survival mode playthrough in apprentice difficulty to get more cinematic finishers and mainly to avoid spongy enemies in melee combat. Probably not a popular way to play, but it is more fun for me.
Also, I am electing to play this without unlocking the random of appearance of dragons in the game. I am doing this by not retrieving the Dragonstone tablet in Bleak Barrow Falls. I already cleared that dungeon and retrieved the Golden Claw. But I specifically did not retrieve the Dragonstone tablet, which means I don't have anything to turn in to Farengar yet, which also means dragons will not randomly appear in the game yet.
Avowed
Played Avowed for the first time yesterday (2025-02-19). While this is no replacement for Skyrim, the first person melee combat is so much more improved than vanilla Skyrim. It's actually fun to fight in melee range while using first person view. The addition of the dodge mechanic is a good one and it seamlessly blends into the combat. I am liking the combat system so far.
In this first playthrough, I'm doing a Sword and Shield type of character, though I just switched to a Mace before logging off. There's a variety of weapons to use and all are interesting in their own right. Even the Wands seem interesting, though I haven't really used them that much. I will try them out, along with the Bow, when I play a Spellcaster or Ranger type character.
Note to self, should explore the Pargrun Castle after I get back to the City of Paradis and things calm down for a bit.
In Avowed there is a quest to get “Fine” quality armor and weapons. For the armor, I forked up the money to buy one. After I bought the armor, I barely had any money left, and it was taking too long to acquire more. I noticed that one of my unique weapons, an axe that does frost damage, can be upgraded to “Fine” quality. I was only missing 2 pieces of Adra. I found these being sold at 625 each, which is cheaper than buying a “Fine” weapon. So, I bought those and ugpraded my unique weapon. That was enough to satisfy the quest requirements. So, there's no need to buy the items, upgrading might be a viable option if you already have most of the upgrade materials.
Minecraft
New idea for Minecraft, every home/outpost should have a 3x3 map wall. Maps should have a 2/4 zoom level. The map that contains the current home should be placed in the middle of this map wall. This would then allow me to view surrounding maps and plot where I want to go next.
Also, with each home having its own map wall, it should be easy to locate the home, as it should show up with a marker on the current map.
Octopath Traveler II
Installed Octopath Traveler II yesterday (2025-02-11) and I am loving this game. I didn't think an old-school style JRPG would keep me interested in these days of modern RPG videogames, but this one has. I love the storytelling. The voice acting is top notch. I love the art design and the animations the characters do. Even if the characters are just rendered in 2-d, I can still feel their emotions because of the excellent use of emoticons and character animations. And I am loving the story so far. The writing, the character lines are great. It makes me want to just keep playing.
Also, the combat is turn based, which is to be expected with a 2-d old school style JRPG game like this, but man it is fun! The combat mechanics are new to me. Enemies have a shield, that you need to break to stun them. You deal more damage to the enemy when they are stunned, not to mention, the enemies lose a turn. Only attacks that exploit an enemy's weakness will lower their shield points. This makes combat a bit more strategic and fun. Sure you can probably keep using the skill that deals the most damage, but if it is not taking down the enemies shield points, then you are not fighting efficiently.
There's also a Boost mechanic, that allows your characters to attack multiple times in a single turn. If you use boost on an attack that exploits an enemy's weakness, you can pretty much keep an enemy stunned every other turn.
I started the game with Temenos, a Cleric. He's a bit weak but his Holy Light attack is pretty strong. I've struggled with keeping him alive during battle until I figured out how to keep enemies stunned. He has AOE healing skill, but at 15 SP per use, it is expensive. Holy Light only costs 6 SP, but with this skill being my best damage dealer, I needed to find a way to replenish my SP without having to use an item. Which is why the first skill I got for him was the Mighty Staff skill. This skill allows Temenos to get back 10% SP based on the damage dealt to the enemy. This skill also involves attacking with the Staff twice. So, if you had an enemy who had a weakness to Staves, using the Mighty Skill on them will reduce their shield points by 2 on every attack. And then if you combine the use of this skill with the Boost mechanic, you can do at most 8 attacks with your staff in a single turn. That's 8 shield points taken out of the enemy, all while replenishing your SP in the process. I'm loving the combat mechanics in this game.
I've just finished Chapter 1 with Temenos and am on my way to the 1st quest marker for Chapter 2.
Gran Turismo 7
The 2017 Suzuki Swift Sport is a fun car to drive. Very agile and takes corners really nicely. This was what I used to unlock the first of the Honda Civic Type R (EK) 98 as part of the Japanese FF Sports Cars menu book.
That EK is pretty good too, especially the engine. It just loves to rev and rev.
Fallout 4
Yesterday (2025-02-01) I reinstalled Fallout 4, because for some reason, I wanted to take another crack at Survival Mode after watching a video about it on Youtube. Due to not having enough space on the Xbox, had to remove Starfield to get it installed.
I am once again reminded why I cannot get through a survival mode playthrough: it just requires too much time on my end. I was on my way to Diamond City with my character, when I passed by Trudy's Diner. Of course I would stop, because there's a standoff between Trudy and Wolfgang. In previous playthroughs, I am able to persuade one of them to not go through with fighting and resolve it peacefully. This time, of course in survival mode, I failed to persuade Trudy. So I had to take out Wolfgang. I should have stayed inside the diner where I wasn't getting hit that much. But my dog was having trouble taking out Wolfgang's bodyguard, I felt like I needed to step out to get a good shot with my pistol. I managed to take out his bodyguard, but just seconds after, I get shot down by Wolfgang.
Okay, this is how survival mode should be. I deal more damage with my shots, I also receive more damage when I get shot. I don't have an issue with that. My issue is, since I cannot do a quick save before the fight, I had to start over from all the way back in Sanctuary after dying. And since there's no fast travel, which makes sense in a survival mode game, I would have to jog all the way from Sanctuary to the diner. This would have been fine if I had all the time in the world to play videogames. But as a dad who works full time as a software developer, I just don't feel like jogging all the way from Sanctuary to the diner to redo the fight.
Unfortunate but that's how it is right now. And this is why, I can never stick with a survival mode playthrough. Unfortunately, vanilla Fallout 4 just doesn't feel immersive anymore after trying out all the mechanics presented in survival mode, especially the food/hunger, thirst and sleep mechanics. I just wished there was a way to do quick saves or save without needing to sleep on a bed, or without resorting to mods to allow me to do quick saves.
Maybe I don't have a choice on this matter. It is a single player offline game. I don't need to brag to people about my achievements. Maybe I play the game with a mod only for saving the game... we'll see.
NBA 2K24
Good explanation of jump shot release timing options
Team: Toroto Raptors Season: 1st Mode: Pseudo My Career using MyNBA Mode
Second game of the season with my pseudo “My Career” mode using MyNBA mode. Second game was against the Bucks. I struggled shooting the ball. I basically have Jaylen Brown's shooting animation and it feels too slow for me. I'm always releasing early, partly because I feel like the shot will get blocked. So, that probably also means I am taking bad shots. But still, I feel it's a slow jump shot animation.
So, I switched to using Vince Carter's jump shot animation. There's no particular reason I chose Vince Carter's jump shot animation, it's just that he's next closest player while browsing the list of jump shot animations. VC seems to have a much quicker release and visually, it seems easier to see when he is “pushing” the ball, which should help me time my releases. We'll see how I fare on my game.
That said, even with a bad shooting night, I still had the most points and rebounds in the team at 17 pts/14 rebounds after stats and minutes were simulated. I am liking how, I can just change animations when I want.
Also, for more “my career” type of feel, I specifically turned on Adaptive Coach Engine in the coach settings. I also set timeouts, substitutions and play-calling to auto. Basically, I don't want to do any coaching in the game. I won't make my own substitutions, I won't call my own timeouts, I'll leave that to the AI coach to decide. I don't even modify the gameplan or change any defensive assignments. Again I'm just a player here, and I'll let the AI coach decide if he wants to play me, or bench me, or run some plays for me. I think it makes it more immersive this way.
I tried using real player % for my pseudo MyNBA character and I struggled hitting any jump shots. It turns out, I take bad shots, and using real player % causes me to miss more than make shots. After I switched back to user timing for jump shots, I made a lot more shots, even those that were contested.
On the layup front, well my character is no Kyrie Irving. I was enamored by all the layups I could do with Kyrie. But when I tried the same kind of plays with my character, well he struggled to make his layups. I also have an issue with my character being too slow to react. I would catch the ball near the rim, and instead of jumping right away to dunk or do a layup, he takes too long to gather the ball and get off a shot. By the time he does, a defender has recovered and smothered his shot.
Unfortunately, I am not having fun with this game too. I thought layups would be better, and sometimes it is, but it really depends on the opposing team it seems. Some have good defenders and shot blockers and they just give me a very hard time.
Either way I have learned that real player % on jump shots is not for me. I still think I will use it for layups, but jump shots has to be user timing for me.
If you've made all the way here, thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Series: #Gamelog