Daxter

So far, absolutely! It seems that each title is standalone so you don’t have to worry about prior plot. For this one in particular, combat is very forgiving and straightforward, exploration is easy, and customization is expansive but transparent. Plus, multiple difficulty levels that can be changed at any time.

Started Tales of Graces F yesterday. A lot of fun up to this point. I started on the third difficulty as I felt optimistic and early on, it seems easy to break the game. There is a mysterious girl in the party whose identity has not been revealed, but I spent so much time experimenting with the battle system that she learned a skill that references her name. There seems to be a lot to explore in a player friendly way, and customization seems expansive and meaningful which I like. A perfect start!

It is good to hear the grind is still going well!

Welcome!

Dark Cloud is finally done. Three total attempts to beat the Dark Genie and I tried out the post game dungeon and completed a floor. Looking back on the game, I would not go out of my way to play the sequel but if I came across it, I would play it. Dark Cloud is the most tedious game I have played in a while. It has had the most resources to manage for sure. Weapons can break, you can lose health from thirst, and have limited inventory space. The story is very bland as the core story is very basic and uses time travel to make it interesting. This does not happen until the end of the game though. None of the party members are relevant to the overall story minus the main character and even his role is small. Meanwhile characters like Xiao and Ruby only get a couple of scenes. Not good. The battle system itself is fun and customization is expansive but not user friendly. There is no way an enemy should be able to block my attack and take 15 weapon health making me lose a weapon I worked on for 40 hours unless I reload the save. The scaling of how many weapon attachments are provided is not to scale with the weapons found. This does force using multiple weapons, but enemy scaling is unforgiving for this. The environment building mechanic is a fun idea, but wastes a lot of time as towns have to be built a certain way to get the reward and that would not align with how a player would build the towns. Fishing is frustrating too with finding specific fish. But I had some fun with the game, it was not all bad. Tales of Graces is up next.

I watched some more Boruto this weekend. I can safely say this Funato Clan arc is the best side arc of the series. I have not seen this level of investment in a side arc in the franchise since the Sora arc in Shippuden. At this rate, only two episodes of the season will be left when it is done. I saw the legendary Boruto crying meme, but it definitely did come at a sad and dark time.

I finally finished up the character specific floors in the Gallery of Time in Dark Cloud. The amount of time it took was outrageous. But, everything after that was simple so I am now up against the Dark Genie. I only did one attempt but made it to his second phase. I will get some more healing items but since Ruby can be used, this should hopefully be his last week. For Samurai Warriors 4, I am continuing to train characters. I made some progress in Nightmare mode with Toyohisa and Yoshihiro, and got Munenori some growth in Hard mode. I also got some more progress in My GM mode in WWE 2K23, though Dakota Kai refused to resign with one of my brands which was annoying.

Welcome!

Adventuring in Dark Cloud has been tedious, but I still continue. So far everything has played out as expected. I had to take a fishing detour and try and build up more weapon repair kits. I am down to the final character’s solo level so of course his weapons are not strong enough. So I will have to grind this out by getting more weapon repair kits. After this floor I expect one more floor to finish Seda’s memories and then the final battle. If Ruby can consistently deal damage, it should not be an issue. I may need to get some healing items at that point though. For now, finishing the final solo floor will be the focus.

In the tail end of Dark Cloud but it has played out as expected. Every character seems to have a floor they need to clear and as a result, I had to make a detour for weapon repair kits. That being said, only two characters are left to do with only one that would be a big problem. I just hope his weapons are strong enough to proceed as is. We will see. I foresee being stuck with one more detour to fish to free up inventory and get more weapon repair kits.

The end is near in Dark Cloud. Only one of Seda’s memories remains to rebuild in the Gallery of Time. However my fear in there being one floor for each character to have to solo seems to be coming true as Xiao just had one. If that happens, I will have to take a detour for more repair kits and weapon attachments though, it may not need to be for too long. But between that and potentially having to fish to free up space, this goes from me feeling the game could be done this week, to it potentially taking until next week. Really, the resource management is the only difficulty I have but bosses prove difficult. As long as the final boss can be damaged by anyone, it will not be an issue.

Hellsing Ultimate was a rough one for me. It took everything that made the original Hellsing good, and exaggerated it to enhance the emotion behind it. On the surface, there is nothing disturbing about it. But when you watch the 40-60 minute episodes, each one has a few scenes that were tough to get through in any kind of positive way. There were some more tame disturbing moments which were surprising but digestible. But how they portrayed the abuse of characters was difficult. It was a tough watch which was the point to be sure, but the details they had you sit through and watch are supposed to have you relate to the mental breakdown of the characters. For Persona 5 fans, think Shiho if you saw in graphic detail the worst case of abuse that happened to her, but then add a violent element to it too. That is how it was in Hellsing Ultimate for multiple characters and it was unrated so you see it all. This is the only anime that comes to mind where I am not sure if I could sit through it all again. There were really good moments but I came out of the anime wondering if it was worth it. I still do not have the answer.

Still catching up on Boruto, but the Funato Clan arc remains solid. The Seiren fight was cool, though it feels like a watered down Neji vs. Kidomaru fight. More of Kagura’s backstory and seeing the relationship between Metal and Hebiichigo is a nice foundation for this arc too. Time will tell if Chojuro does something meaningful.

I respect the commitment to the card grind.

I made some more good progress with Dark Cloud. I have yet to gain access to a back floor in the Gallery of Time so I expect a large difficulty spike to happen in those areas. I am being burned with Toan’s weapon inventory now but I do not have enough weapon attachments to stop for weapon leveling, and so close to the end I do not want to make a 10 hour detour to restock and grind.

Watched some more Boruto yesterday and this Funato Clan arc continues to be executed well. Some predictable twists with unexpected turns happened which helps continue the excitement. I am now convinced half of the season will be dedicated to this arc which is really good to not only reward the anime audience, but allow for a more engaging story.

The Dark Cloud grind continues. I am almost halfway done with the Gallery of Time, so I am hoping to beat the game by next week. Inventory management remains my biggest opponent but now, there is not a straightforward way to use up items unless I never avoid any damage. Finding weapon attachments remains a constant battle.

Between different cultures having different ages of consent, to it truly being a fictional world being created, I just think you have to know what you are comfortable viewing and what you are not. Anime and manga is a wide spectrum. Not every single one has fan service and not all ones with fan service have lolis. I personally do not like lolis for various reasons so if I see that is a focus for an anime or manga, I brace myself if something else is drawing me to the series or avoid it altogether. It is not a matter of accepting it. I do not agree with every piece of content expressed in a series I experience. But what I do accept is people having their preferences. I have friends that love lolis and while I will never share that interest, that will not deter me from discussing the series with them. Sexualized minors is a hot topic from various media genres so anime and manga is not special in that. But since I can’t operate the minds of these authors and artists, all I can do in this case is respect different cultures and avoid series that would make me uncomfortable to experience. All that being said, this is one reason why I never fight people on not liking anime. Most people are not going to take the time to find the area of anime that avoids lolis altogether.

Bleach Opening 7, After Dark by AKFG, remains my all-time favorite.

Still working through Dark Cloud. The last level does not have many weapon attachments so far which is concerning, but I will have to leave to free up inventory space anyway…again. I swear, inventory and resource management is half of the play time in this game. The difficulty of the last level has been smooth so far, but I have not gained access to any back floors yet so I am curious how that difficulty scaling is. Based on how this level has been structured, I am expecting this to be the longest dungeon by far, but time will tell.

Started the last level of Dark Cloud yesterday. As expected, there is a final dungeon. So far so good but with how much of the game has not been necessary to optimize, I expect either a long dungeon or a hard one. The weapon capacity issue for Toan rang true as I had to throw away one of his weapons to make room. My plan had been to use repair kits to grind with his weaker weapons and then absorb them into a stronger weapon since that is what the game wants you to do. But, since I randomize who gets the repair kits when I find them, it did not work out as Ruby kept getting picked. Because I am so close to the end now, I will press on with this plan for now. At least Ruby is very strong now.

Made some more progress in Dark Cloud yesterday. The Sun Giant is built, Moon Sea is done, and final battle at the Dark Heaven Castle has been teased. I worry about a difficulty spike or swerve last level as I have only tapped into maybe 50% of what the weapon system can be. I would rather have a post game dungeon but time will tell.

Well they technically do but only to a point so it is not as noticeable as random encounters. I don’t remember the exact numbers but eventually bosses will stop leveling up with you while random encounters always do. However, there is never going to be a time where your level makes you unable to beat a boss. That can happen with the random encounters though.

Watched a couple more episodes of Boruto. I am really enjoying this Funato Clan arc. Solid character moments and the darker death themes happening throughout and not just the start or end is keeping me engaged. Not a lot of action so if you are in it for that, this would not be for you. But if you are a fan of tight storytelling, this arc is right up there with the Victor and Deepa arc which is impressive.

For random encounters, enemy levels match your level. So if you kept avoiding experience points and ended up getting to the end of the game with an average level of 10, enemies at that point would be Level 10 as well. Similarly, if you somehow found a way to get to an average level of 100 right now, all enemies you face would be Level 100 as well. You would face the same enemies, but they will have higher stats and I believe different Draw Magic too. New characters who join match your average level too so levels are irrelevant anytime you are not in a boss fight. This was done to make sure whether you avoided battles and gaining experience, or over-leveled, that the difficulty remains the same where how well you Junction determines how easy fights are. However, the bosses have fixed stats so staying under-leveled is common to keep those fights interesting. So that is why when you said you were avoiding leveling to avoid a difficult situation, I was so surprised. I get your reasoning from the perspective you have but your knowledge of the game does not really match your plan. Only if you are stuck on random encounters should you avoiding leveling up so you can get a chance to optimize your Junctions. But you are doing this at the start of the game with solid knowledge of magic, items, and it sounds like a decent feel for Junctions. If you are already trying to get Ultima, that is endgame magic. Meaning if you Junction properly, you could move forward right now without ever leveling up and beat 80% of the storyline bosses. But since I imagine you will be leveling up once you truly start, no boss will be able to beat you if you even just do decent Junctions until you get to post-game bosses. Random encounters are fundamentally easier than bosses, but punish you if you are at a high level with bad Junctions. So you will always need to keep pace with that for the full game but your level does not factor into the experience at all with them.