Xbox Series S
PSA: Microsoft Support currently turns you away for any Game Pass-related questions into a Virtual Assistant deathloop from hell, I went to customer service and got a real human being to call my phone to help me 'with Windows 10.' The real story is that I was having issues doing something that worked for millions of other Xbox gamers: 2 years of Xbox Live Gold from Costco for $100, then redeem a Game Pass Ultimate subscription afterward to convert the entire prepaid 2 years to Game Pass Ultimate, (which would have cost $120 per year). I got a site error that referred me to the Virtual Assistant for help, except my unique error wasn't in the FAQ, but Microsoft has diabled phone calls and chat for subscription-related issues. The whole experience is a big turnoff to someone new and inexperienced to Xbox and I almost took it back. I respect and want to work for this company someday and directly address this shortcoming. Anyway, after an hour testing different things, I'm good to go until July 2023! Onto the games:
I dug up a ~10 year saved game of Plants vs Zombies from when I had an Xbox 360 and finished the last 12-odd levels. I am a sucker for tower defense games and this is an oldie but a goodie. I'm not a fan of the newer PvZ games that have been made into 3D FPS with way too much to do.
Spiritfarer is a vibrant game that celebrates the sweetness of life. Charon, the being who takes the dead to the underworld, needs a break and appoints you to do his job. The game itself is time/resource management game, as you grow stuff, pull lost cargo out of the sea or sail to islands to trade or feed your charges, who are being ferried to the afterlife. The game is also about these relationships, making people happy with their favorite foods or simply giving them a hug. There are these eerily beautiful events in the game where you pull into a stormy patch of sea, your characters all freak out and the sky darkens. As an unsettling dirge starts playing, these jellyfish start swarming your boat. Turns out you're supposed to collect them, but I sure as hell didn't know that the first time I accidentally stumbled in. It was also 230AM and I freaked out. Ultimately, I gave it about 5 hours before I realized that I didn't really feel a purpose in anything I was doing. I like stronger narratives that Spiritfarer offered.
Ikenfell is an 16-bit-ish RPG that starts off with your main character Maritte discovering she has magic powers when no one else thought she did. She wants to save her trouble-making younger sister who was going to a magic school called Ikenfell.
The game has a charming presentation that was more cute than funny or serious and a diverse cast, but the dialogue itself didn't really grab me. The battle system has a simple timing mechanic for higher damage, but is otherwise what you would expect in a game like this. Lastly, all the save points are cats. Ikenfell's a cute game, but I gave it about 6 hours before deciding I wasn't going to stick with it. If I had paid for it on Playstation, I'd have beaten it and gone for the platinum. But I didn't, so I won't!
I spent the majority of my Xbox time playing The Messenger, which is a dope Ninja Gaiden-like game that changes genres as you play it. There's a trailer for it that shows one of the changes, but there are more that I won't go into. The chiptune soundtrack is the best feature of the game, followed by the Shopkeeper, a robed figure who pops up throught the game and will always indulge you with a story and life lesson. His/her/its stories are great, and the game's writing is funny as hell. There's a lot of great platforming here; slashing enemies, double jumping, easy puzzles, upgrades, and the NES-style music keeps you going through it all. Most of the challenges like tricky jumps or puzzle switches are only a few seconds to complete, meaning the hard parts or feeling lost are minimized. Most of the bosses I beat the first time. The Messenger is somewhat forgiving in terms of landing jumps and hits, and enemies telegraph their moves pretty clearly. This was a superb indie title to end the year beating!
I just started Cross Code, a new release 16/32-bit action RPG. The character design reminds me of Xenoblade, with the anime-style robot babe who shoots stuff. The setting is some time in a very neat future, and your character is participating in a popular MMORPG that that world watches, like Ready Player One, but with some actual structure. I've only played an hour or so of it and I like it so far. There's just as many puzzles involving shooting switches as there is combat, but that might have been because it was a tutorial woven into the story.
Between Game Pass giving me such a huge selection and the Xbox being an inconvenient mess to transfer capture media, I will likely keep these entries in clusters, since the photos take more effort to get off the damn system.
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