One thing that seems a little out of place is that I never sleep in my dorm room or eat in the great hall. I think it would add a bit of immersion?

Also, I'm playing on normal difficulty. I wonder if the high levels remove the yellow bread crumb paths for quests? That would definitely crank up the difficulty.

Yes, I did wonder (and try) the first night as everyone "went away" if I was supposed to go back to the dorm and sleep. It's quite nice to walk around all alone at night also though

I guess they didn't put much work/effort into any dorm-room usage/mechanics as



Never visited the great hall during 'dinner time' though - wonder if it's full of people eating?

You can do that manually, I do it for immersion.

Hard only thing I've noticed and not certain is ancient magic fills slower I think.

There's a ton of youtube Hogwarts Legacy videos out there but here is one that only has minor minor spoilers but I found really helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj4SxFhHz_A

e.g I didn't realise the orange shield pops up right before an incoming attack and is an alert to hit protego (or red shield -> roll). I alway wondered why that shield was there... Or the basic attack combo is groups of four. In the past I would just spam it with leviosa/accio mixed in. Oh and the meaning for all the colors. I missed that too.

Wow you missed a lot of obvious stuff

yes, I randomly spammed protego during a fight. and I didn't know that each colored shield was vulnerable to that colors magic.

Also, I updated the gfx driver and game a couple days ago and noticed all the graphics options were reset to 'ULTRA'.

I wondered why it felt a little laggy.

Regarding Hogwarts Legacy... It's possible to bug a quest if the quest trigger gives you a gear item but your inventory is full...

Kerbal Space Program 2 was released for early access today. It is definitely lacking tons of ksp1 features. Hopefully those get added in a reasonable time. Also it requires a seriously beefy modern machine. KSP1 runs fine on an average laptop...

there's a demo for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty available on Steam now, Team Ninja's new game that realeases in around a week and answers the age-old question "what if Nioh, but Sekiro?"

given that I recently sunk over 100hrs into Nioh 2, I thought this would be a day 1 buy for me, but now I'm not so sure, these games live and die by their combat and in this case it's just not clicking with me, plus it feels a bit repetative (compared to insane amount of customization in Nioh)

also, the demo features THE hardest tutorial boss I've ever encountered, I assume they will nerf him a little bit for the final release, but damn, it took me over an hour to beat him

Looks like Sea of Stars released a demo instead of their game this month. I'm guessing that means they're extremely behind schedule.

It will be on Gamepass on day one if you have that.

Made the mistake of getting back into survivor-y games again, so my life's gone for while.

Vampire Survivors. Obviously great. Not played it for quite a while and I've seen there are quite a few updates and a load more things to unlock. Finding it hard to get into as it's lost all my old progress, and starting from zero again is a bore.

Soulstone Survivors - Loving this. Can see it being a massive time sink in the near future.

Nordic Ashes - Bit incomplete currently, but still fun and has lots of potential. I really like the art style.

Have resisted so far, but think Brotato will soon be got too...

Anyone tried Terra Nil yet? For some reason that game just looks like it would scratch an itch that I didn't know I had.

Quick glance says, people like it but it is very short / limited gameplay, which is unfortunate.

I played it during one of those Steam indie events where a bunch of indie games offer demos. Its weird it doesn't still have a demo. Ignore the city builder tags its more like a puzzle game. I liked it when I played and wishlisted it but $32.99 CAD is way too expensive for it. At that price I wouldn't buy it for less than 66% off.

Good to know, sounds pretty accurate.

Dredge seems like a fun little horror single player. I'm racking up a bit of a wishlist, maybe by summer sale they will go a bit lower.

Stumbled onto Hi-Fi Rush on GamePass last night.

Not a game I'd normally gravitate towards if I'd read the description before playing, but it's easily one of the most fun games I've played in a long time.

I bought Hellpoint, I knew that the game has received very mixed reviews, but it was very cheap, so I decided to give it a shot

and man, games like this really break my heart. The atmosphere, visuals and general concept is amazing, it's basically a mix of a soulslike with survival-scifi-eldritch horror. But everything is just so janky that the game is not fun to play at all, especially bosses are terrible due to a mix of bad hitboxes, stiff controls and badly designed tells. Plus, I typically never get lost in soulslikes, but levels here are just insane to navigate, with all the different paths and secrets.

To me, this feels like the opposite of Mortal Shell - in that game, they clearly started by designing a combat system that was extremely polished and felt good to play, but the entire package just lacked soul, I know that many people liked it, but for me it wasn't that great. With Hellpoint, devs clearly started with a general idea how their game will look like, but just couldn't execute it properly

edit: I looked around at some reviews and it would appear that the weapon I chose as my main (Column, kinda like the greatclub from DS) was specifically very badly design, I might try and switch to something else later

small update - I decide to keep playing a while longer and I can confirm that after switching to a different weapon, the combat does become much more fun. Plus, I finally found a decent boss (the 4th one, so no the best ratio), though he did have completely unnecessary ads

Anyone play Octopath Traveler 2 or Live a Live? They seem like games I'd love but I hate paying full price.

Live a Live is on sale on the Humble Store for $34.99. Activates on Steam. https://www.humblebundle.com/store/live-a-live

Steam's Summer Sale starts on the 29th, if that influences your decision at all.

Awesome thanks a lot!

Did you play the first Octopath, Bluegrass?