BREAK!!

• Genre: Tabletop RPG
• Time Played: 300+ Hours 
• Too Short/Long: Honestly it depends on the game. I think this is best played in a mid-length campaign. Tell a story about adventurers facing a threat, maybe multiple, and conclude their story. Make sure there is some travel and multiple key locations. If you're playing once a week, you might wanna aim to wrap up a campaign in half a year tops.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very Pleased, even if I wasn't playtesting, BREAK!! would be in my regular tabletop RPG lineup.
• Why I played: Mainly because I know one of the creators, but what draws me in specifically is the gorgeous artwork and the inspirations behind it. I see a lot of what I want to put into games myself, in this game.
• Recommend to others: Definitely, that's why I'm making this post. SOLID recommend from me, but specifically if you want an easy to pick up and play but also content rich rpg for a group of friends specifically into anime and video games, this is the one to go for.

 Doing something a little different today. Most of my blog is for my own personal use. I write up on the games I finish to hold myself accountable so I actually finish games, and also so I can reference my thoughts on them. There are so many games I play that years later I just can't remember what I thought of them, but when I reference my own writing it all comes back to me. So pay that no mind. I'm not here to get followers for my personal notes that I make to also share with my friends.

Today I wanna talk about BREAK!! Considering I've finished several campaigns, I'd say it's fair to say I have "Completed" BREAK!!.

I have been involved in playtesting of the game for a few years, and admittedly, one thing I haven't done is run a game of BREAK!! My main reason for that is nothing against BREAK!!, but just the fact that I make an effort to play as many different games as possible, and since the writer of the game is always willing to run BREAK!!, I find myself in a position to run other games more frequently. That said, I have played BREAK!! games run by other players, not just the creator.

Witch Explorer

• Genre: Tower Defense Shmup
• Time Played: 10-15 Hours? Will update when Switch tells me. 
• Too Short/Long: About right, it could be longer if levels were shorter, but some really test your endurance.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleasantly surprised, a kinda random acquisition just because it looked cute I thought might end up sucking.
• Why I played: Cute art and Tower Defense + Shmup seemed interesting.
• Recommend to others: Maaaybe if you specifically like the genres and don't mind some blatant fan service.

I got this one on a whim because it was cute and 40% off on release. Usually 40% off on release date is what Switch shovelware does, but it seemed like a few people had good things to say about the Steam version and it looked cute.

The main gameplay is tower defense and you get a small handful of units with different abilities. I think it could have benefited from more variety in its units, but I can also see how that might make many levels too easy. However, it could have used something to make it a little more easy. Maybe just shorter levels at the same difficulty? I didn't feel like it was ever really too challenging, but the levels that were the most, were partially so difficult because they were so long, and if you had to retry and new strategy... you had to play another 10-15 minutes to catch up to see if your new strategy works.

It mixes up the gameplay a bit with some pure side scrolling shmup levels and some challenge levels to gain an alternate currency for some extra costumes for your assist character in the hub menu, and some extra scenes. There are also some unlocks for the hub and upgrades for your units. Pretty standard stuff mostly. I don't really have much else to say. I liked it though, and the devs are working on some other spin-off style sequels or something, so I'll look forward to that.

Fur Squadron

• Genre: On-Rails Shooter
• Time Played: Less than an hour to beat? I played more because of other difficulties.
• Too Short/Long: Way too short.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Mildly disappointed, only due to the length.
• Why I played: Because it looked like a cool synthwave Star Fox
• Recommend to others: I would if you really need some Star Fox-esque game to play, and it is only like 6 bucks not on sale, but it's very very short.

I didn't expect this to be as short as it is. I guess Star Fox games aren't super long, but all the levels besides the last one are like 5 minutes tops and the last is like 10. So I would be surprised if my first run took 45 minutes.

It's a short and sweet love letter to Star Fox, but it doesn't even bother trying to play with mechanics. You have your bomb, your "Barrel Roll" (which they even call out as an aileron roll), and you hold the button to lock on. You can "shield" to restore your health and a laser upgrade. That's about it. It's solid. It looks cool, but it's over before you know it.

It does sound like the devs miiight be releasing more content in the future? Might be worth revisiting. At least it's not the only Star Fox inspired game coming out this year.

The Adventures of Nayu

• Genre: Clicker
• Time Played: 1.5 Hour
• Too Short/Long: Way too short.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Mildly disappointed 
• Why I played: I saw it in my Steam library and was like "What's this?" and installed it and played it.
• Recommend to others: Not really, there are better "clicker" or auto style games that offer more entertainment and stuff to do.

I debated even including this, but I guess technically I beat it or finished it, and I got all the achievements, but it didn't really feel like I did anything. Even though auto/clicker style games are just kinda time wasters and generally do not require skill, usually there are far more steps and things to do in the middle of things. After about an hour and a half there is nothing else to do in this game. I unlocked everything and got all the achievements from it's very slightly Flappy Bird inspired mini-game. 

It has super cute art and a little story, but it would have been great to expand on that, let you switch your party members, actually have your party members do anything, have different parties you battle and advantages/disadvantages . The enemies don't even fight back, so it's not one of those where you upgrade and then start over and keep doing that, you will eventually win no matter what, if you don't click as much or select upgrades it may take longer, that's it.