Xylobe

Posting my November update a few days early, as I'll be completely busy for the next week and a half: +5 games and +2 rows this month, making great progress! I ended up going with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for Global Belly Laugh Day on January 24, and everything else continued as planned: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Thanksgiving - November 25), Returnal (Finnish Independence Day - December 6), Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (Appreciate a Dragon Day - January 16), and A Short Hike (Canada Day - player recommended). Only 5 games left on the calendar: Kentucky Route Zero, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Spiritfarer, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5. Despite making good time, those last two might stand between me and a clean sweep-- I'm working on the Korean stacks, and I don't speak a word of it.

Adding one more of each color to my total at the 11th hour: Big thanks to everyone involved with organizing this, everyone who participated, and everyone who decided to pledge!

I have Tails of Iron, Rainbow Billy, Kitaria Fables, Coffee Talk, and a few Artifex Mundi titles sitting in my cart; there's a lot of great stuff in this sale, so I'm eager to see what other games people recommend. It's now time for my regularly scheduled "Phoenotopia: Awakening is the best game I've played this year and no one else has heard of it" comment. Buy it if you like metroidvanias (or just good games)!

https://voxelse.github.io/aShortHike/interactiveMap/ Not mine, but I figured I should link it anyway. I'd strongly recommend playing through as much of the game as you can on your own - nothing is missable or particularly difficult - but this map will prove valuable for cleaning up the Green Thumb trophy (the 27 sprouts aren't tracked at all in-game).

Ending the playthrough just saves and puts you back on the main menu, so you can continue on with no progress lost barring any crashes or glitches. Edit: The Steam achievement list is the same now, but prior to today there were some differences that will be reflected in any guides. Namely the parkour trophy now only requires beating each race once rather than twice, and the "Not a Scratch," "Green Thumb," "Photo Friends," and "Only You Can Prevent Campfires" trophies are all new.

Nothing is too difficult-- I was worried about the boat race as well, but my first attempt came in at 44 seconds, and that was with a 20 second penalty for running into things. One of the parkour races was tricky, but I didn't realize that there are upgrades that would have made it much easier. The hardest thing is probably getting 30 points in beachstickball for "Remember This Day Forever", but even that's not too bad once you get the hang of it; the time I finally broke 30, I made it all the way to 61. All in all it's a pretty straightforward 3-4 hour plat with minimal guide usage, less if you know what you're doing.

Generally I think of my 'backlog' as games I've purchased, intend to play, and haven't started, but every so often a game will get put down partway through for one reason or another or will get DLC after I've finished it, so I went with the first 2 options. The "intend to play" part is important, since I have chronic brain rot and buy anything that looks vaguely interesting and is on sale; my current backlog is 200 games deep and in desperate need of a good culling.

I'm constantly blown away at your ability to not only remember but meaningfully critique these games you played so long ago; I played LA Cops around the same time you did, and if you asked me about it I'd only be able to describe a vague feeling of dread. I'd love to see you finish Supergiant's efforts with Bastion and Pyre! You ranked Transistor quite a bit above Hades, which from my experience is equal parts spicy and correct, and I'm curious where their other two games will land.

Astro's Playroom Demon's Souls Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered (auto) Assassin's Creed Valhalla Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (auto) Control Scarlet Nexus Ladders by POWGI Manifold Garden Hades Mina & Michi Hellbreachers Cross the Moon Super Destronaut DX-2 Infestor Gaps by POWGI Heal Legends of Talia: Arcadia Tales of Arise Nexomon Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart I got my PS5 on launch day, but I didn't play any PS5-native games between AC Valhalla in December and auto-popping Fallen Order in June. Didn't manage to finish Returnal in time, but collectible progress is going well and I should be done with it next week.

October update! I had a productive month, finishing Nexomon Extinction (October 31 - Halloween), Obduction (October 12 - Moment of Frustration Day), Raji: An Ancient Epic (November 14 - Children's Day [India]), Bug Fables (December 27 - Make Cut-out Snowflakes Day), Tales of Arise (December 20 - International Human Solidarity Day), and Glass Masquerade (January 29 - Puzzle Day). One line down, nine more to go! The list I made out when I signed up seems to be going well so far, so I'll probably keep sticking with it. But since I left a few blanks: January 16 - Appreciate a Dragon Day: I'll do Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars for this one, since it features a dragon prominently enough in the title. Recommendation - Canada Day: I was waiting for Backbone to release on PS4, since it's set in Vancouver, but it seems like there's some kind of issue (glitch or otherwise) with one of its trophies, so the plat might be off the table for now. A Short Hike, my backup, is set in a Canadian national park, but still doesn't have a release date beyond "Fall 2021." I'm hoping at least one of those two will be doable by the end of the event. January 24 - Global Belly Laugh Day: I'll be honest, I still have nothing for this one. It's also National Compliment Day, but I'm not sure how much that actually helps. If anyone has a suggestion for either of those holidays I'd love to hear them!

Finished these 4!

I wouldn't call it "very easy," but it's not even close to representative of the game's overall difficulty. Sort the trophy list by rarity-- Wood Boy is almost 20x more common than Impossible Boy, with good reason. That said, you earned Mein leben, so you should feel right at home.

Glad to finally get another look at Little Devil Inside and a release date for Death's Door. First Class Trouble also seems neat and it confirms the PS+ leak. I feel like I'm losing my mind but I don't understand what this OFK thing actually is. Is it a real group making the world's most self-indulgent video game? Is it fiction with poor marketing? I'm always happy for Gamers to get a new outrage target of the week, but something just seems off with it-- it feels more like an SCP than a real piece of media.

Occasionally games can end up listed out of order on your profile if you sync multiple games at once. It seems to me like it's more common with PS3 and Vita, and it shouldn't have anything to do with the timestamps themselves. Happened to me a few years ago when I synced the PS3 Souls game plats all at once.

As far as I can tell the download feature was removed from the PS4 version at some point.