Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Video Games

My 2025 game awards, part nine

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I’ve been maundering on and on about the games I enjoyed playing this year for the better part of eight prior posts. I’ve played more games this year than in previous years (this is an estimation and me going by vibes), and I’ve enjoyed half of most of them. Here is the post from yesterday, in which I talk a whole lot about my evergreen favorite game, Elden Ring (FromSoft).

I’ve talked about it in previous posts that this was the year of me being deeply divided about games that I’ve played. That includes this, which is my last award. Let’s see what I want to call it. Hm.

*thinks for several seconds*

My favorite game this year that really charmed me with its whimsy and off-beat kookiness, not to mention the quirky NPCs

Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works Limited)

From the moment I saw the announcement trailer for this game, I was really intrigued. I liked the style of it and the premise, and I was drawn in by the quirkiness. I saw an interview with Shuhei Yoshida, the former president of Sony in which he talked about his role in the game. SWERY (Swery 65), a well-known Japanese game developer was in it as well.

Kaizen Game Works first game was Paradise Killer–a slick, retro-feeling game that gave off neo-noir vibes. Also very quirky and offbeat. I tried to play it, but I got really bad nausea because it was first-person. I could only play in fifteen minute bursts, and I gave up after a few hours.

I did not try the demo for Promise Mascot Agency when it came out because I knew I was going to play the game, and I don’t usually play the demo when I’m going to actually play the game. Then, I forgot the game existed until the pre-release fanfare was blaring. Then, I got excited for it, but still held off. I ended up buying it a few weeks after release, I think, and I was immediately struck by how much I loved the characters.

One thing I did not realize as I played the game was that Michi, the main character, was voiced by the actor who plays Kiryu in the Yakuza series, Takaya Kuroda. Granted, I have not played anything more than an hour of one of the Yakuza games, but still. I had heard his voice often enough that I should have recognized it, but I didn’t. I put it down to how good his acting was in this game.

I loved his character form the start. He has honor, is hardworking, cares about others, and is jsut an upright man. I liked spending time with him, tooling around Kaso-Machi in his broken-down  truck. I did not like driving said truck, by the way, but it became tolerable once I could upgrade it.


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My 2025 game awards, part eight

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I have one more post in me in which I lavish praise upon Elden Ring (FromSoft). I have to say that no matter where FromSoft goes from here (and I have a feeling I may not be along for the ride), I will always have Elden Ring. Before I get into it, here is the post from yesterday in which I just gush about Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree.

I don’t believe in perfection, but this is as close as it gets for me. They got rid of several of the things that made previous games frustration such as excessive boss runs, elaborate upgrading systems*, and weirdly named stats. They added a guard counter in addition to the parry and a dedicated jump button. Plus, Torrent, the spirit speed, which makes traversal much easier. Horse combat isn’t great, but it’s passable.

I’m doing the DLC with my dex(ish) character, and I’m astounded at how much easier it is when I just attack endlessly. I love my incants, but I need to use them sparingly. I did not put all those points into dex and endurance just to fiddle around the edges with my spells. Though I do love my spells. So much.

It’s funny because I’m a big pyro person in From games. That’s not the funny part; the funny part is that  I don’t use that many fire spells in Elden Ring. I use some, but there are so many great sorceries and incantations in the game, I like to keep a wide spread. One thing I appreciate about Rory (the R in RKG) is that he will try something new just for shits and giggles. And he will drop things without thinking twice about it, even if he absolutely loved it for several episodes. In the previous games, he was mostly a sword and board guy. In this game, he had a lot of fun dabbling with the incantations.

It sparked so much joy when he showed love to the Lightning Spear, Rotten Breath/Ekzyke’s Decay, and Swarm of Flies. I never thought he would becomeso enamored with the dragon heads, but it was great to see.  He cycled through weapons every few episodes. Mostly because he got bored, but also because the lads insisted he change it up now and again.

His build was all over the place because Krupa let him put his points pretty much wherever he wanted, which meant he spread them all over the place. That’s what I do, even though I know it’s not optimal. i can’t help myself, so it was nice to see Rory do it as well. One of the guys affectionately nicknamed it the smorgasbuild, and the name stuck. Many people were frustrated with it and urged him to do a real build. There were plenty of people who had Very Strong Ideas as to what those builds should be.


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My 2025 game awards, part seven

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Let’s talk more about Elden Ring (FromSoft) just becaause I can. This is my FromSoft game of the year, and here is yesterday’s post why Nightreign is not the one. It feels weird to not give the award to a FromSoft game that released within the calendar year, but I just could not do it.

I’m doing a dex(ish) run in Elden Ring, and I am in the DLC. As with many FromSoft games, getting to the DLC is not as easy as firing it up. It’s not hard to access, per se, but you have to be pretty far into the game in order to do so. Well, technically, you can get there fairly early, but you have to be really good in order to do that. If you go along the normal path, then you probably won’t do the second thing you need to do until the last fourth of the game.

This was one of the reasons that people were not happy with Shadow of the Erdtree being nominated for Game of the Year last year–the fact that you have to play three quarters of the base game in order to access the DLC. I don’t quite get that as sequels are considered fair game to be game of the year as well.

I mean, I do understand that it’s asking a lot. FromSoft always asks a lot from the player in order to access the DLC. The first game is notorious for how elaborate it was to get into the DLC. You had to kill the hydra in the lake in Darkroot Basin. Then, you had to kill the golden golem in the lake to release Dusk of Ooolacile who was imprisioned within. Then, you had to go to the Duke’s Archives to kill a specific crystal golem to get a necklace. Then, you had to go back to  the lake to access a portal at the very end of it.

You can’t even get to the Duke’s Archives until the second half of the game. FromSoft had to tell reviewers how to get the DLC because no one figured it out. Dark Souls III isn’t so bad, and the entrance to the DLC is in the first fourth of the game.

With Shadow of the Erdtree, there are two bosses you have to kill. The first one makes sense, and it fell in line with what people speculated would happen. The second, though, was a complete mystery. There was a lot of speculation why that particular boss needed to be killed in order to access the DLC, but there was no good answer until the DLC was dropped.

I have to say, I really don’t understand the furor over the SotE nom for game of the year last year. In addition to the aforementioned complaint, another gripe I heard was that Elden Ring already got its recognition, so it should sit down and shut up (basically). This also didn’t make any sense to me because as I said, sequels can be nominated for game of the yaer, so why not DLC? Any other company could have called this game a sequel and gotten so much praise for it. It’s very meaty–it took me over seventy hours to finish it. And I fucked up all the NPC questlines, which probably shaved off an hour or two.

In comparison, I put in over 200 hours for my first playthrough of Elden Ring. So the DLC was roughly a third the size and cost under half the price. That’s way more than most companies would do. Miyazaki has jokes for days when it comes to the size of his games. Before the DLC dropped, he said it was about the size of Limgrave (the first area of the base game). Well, yes, if you don’t count how vertical the DLC  is. It may be the size of Limgrave horizontally, but boy, did it go deep. I have not heard/seen so many people say/write the word ‘vertical’ over one game.

It’s apt, though. Miyazaki is known for his exquisite level design. Any game in which he is the lead shows how immaculate he is in this area. Well, at least when he has the time to execute it properly. And he went over the top with the DLC for this game.


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My 2025 game awards, part six

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Now we’ve come to the part of my awards giving where I’m the most conflicted I’ve ever been. Here is yesterday’s post on Hades II (Supergiant Games), a game that reall yhad me conflicted. I felt really weird that I wasn’t more enthusiastic about the game, but I can only be honest–I prefer the oreginal. The sequel is an excellent game, but there is nothing new in it that blew me away. And, I preferred much of the original to the sequel.

That was hard, but today is even harder. I have had an ongoing schtick in which I bestow an award to  FromSoft game every year, regardless of if they release a game that year or not. In a year in which they launch a game, it’s unheard of that I would not give that game the FromSoft award. Even if I could not play the game or it did not gel with me, it would automatically get the award.

Until this year.

Elden Ring Nightreign dropped this year. It used the assets from Elden Ring, but it was a standalone game. I knew from the trailer that it was not going to be my thing, but I hoped.

Why did I know it was not going to be my thing? Because it included everything I hate in a game. Multi-player, fast-paced, no time to  stop and think, very little story and lore, and RNG for each run (sort of).

What do I love about FromSoft games? The exploration; the slow, deliberate pace; the gorgeous level design; the NPCs; and the feeling of overcoming difficulties. I have no qualms over-leveling if I can and making the boss fights as easy as possible.

I’m split on the boss fights themselves. Yes, the bosses are incredible and memorable, but From has been making them harder and harder over the years. I have known for several games that I will one day be not able to play one of their trademark hard-as-nails action adventure games, and we’re almost there.

I tried to like Nightreign; I really did. I put dozens of hours into it, playing the Recluse (the witch). I lucked out in that the first run I had was with two incredible randos, and we beat the first Night Lord (the big boss at the end of three days that is incredible hard. I mean, this one is the first one, so not as hard, but still).

That gave me a false sense of hope, and I did not come close to victory again for dozens of hours. I was mostly playing with randos because the people in the Discord are all PlayStation people and because I suck so badly, I felt bad playing with–well, anyone beacuse I was the one dragging everyone down. It did not help that the Recluse is the hardest character to play, well, one of them, anyway. The other character I liked (the Revenant) was considered difficult, too. Plus, unlocking her was a pain in the ass as well.


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My 2025 game awards, part five

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I’m back to talk more about my game awards for 2025. In the last post in which I wrote about this topic, I was musing about Hades II (Supergiant Games). I have written several posts about this game because it’s been the most frustrating game I’ve played this year by far. I know many people were blown away by it and think it’s unequivocably better than the first game in all aspects. Those people, not coincidentally, aren’t playing the game for the story or the relationships. I don’t understand that mentality when it comes to this game, but I accept it’s true.

For anyone who is into it for the latter reasons, though, there are plenty of reasons to be dissatisfied with the sequel. The relationships in the first game took time to develop (arguably, too much time) and I felt  I earned each deepening step. It felt organic (well, as organic as it can be in a video game), and by the end, I was truly touched by how close I felt to two of the NPCs.

The same writer wrote the dialogue for both games. Something must have happened to him between the two games because the way he wrote the women in the sequel was atrocious. I’m just going to put it in plain words. Or, something may not have happened, but he didn’t have the chops to write a female protag, and he relayed way too heavily on aping the charactars from the first game.

One of my favorite NPCS in the sequel (Moros) was very similar to one of my favorite characters in the first game (Thanatos). Except whereas Thanatos was pragmatic about being the god of death, Moros was more conflicted as to his role, especially in relation to his sisters (the Three Fates). He comes off very much as naive and earnest, which is not what you expect from Doom. I like him for it, but I would not have minded a streak of something darker in him.

On the other hand, *sigh* Nemesis. She’s based on Megaera, who is one of my top three favorite NPCs from the first game. Megaera was also the first boss, which made for an interesting dynamic. Plus, her fraught relationship with her two sisters made things complicated and interesting as well. I loved everything about her, and I would have done anything for her.

When we started an intimate relationship, it meant something. In this game, it happened so easily, I was astonished. I was able to give, ah, nectar? I think? And then aphrodisiac? Whatever it was, I was able to give the presents liberally and often. Then, I was able to bed a few NPCs before I even beat the last boss of the downward path.


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My 2025 game awards, part three (b)

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I want to write more about Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock) because it’s emblemtic of my gaming year. I bestowed it with an award yesterday, but it is not without its flaws. I have written several posts in which I highlight the positives and the negatives.

It has a mystery baked into it, but it’s, if you’ll pardon the pun, half-baked at best. I figured out what was going on before the denouement, and I was disappointed when it was revealed that I was right. There was no way the mystery was going to be satisfying. I knew that from the start, so I wasn’t very disappointed when it turned out to be true.

One of the biggest issues with the game wsa that there was just too much thrown into the soup. They could have taken out the mystery, the breeding of the animals (to make magical, colorful animals), and several other additions, and the game would have been just as satisfying. There is a point of oversaturation, and I think this game passed it.

Here is a quick list of activities/events/things included in the game: planting, farming, and harvesting; selling items and buying them; nurturing silk worms in order to make silk for clothing (this takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r); making clothing and selling them to Violet; mining for gems, coal, and other minerals; making jewelry and selling it to Parker (and this does not show up, really, until the very end of the game; making hair dyes and otther hair stuff for Eury (also a late game addition); fishing, making several different spells; gathering resources; amassing an amount of items for various townfolk; finding recipes; cooking; meeting with the coven every night; romancing, dating, and getting married (and then divored); figuring out the mystery; and that’s not even everything.

Oh, I forgot to mention the animals. Feeding them, finding their favorite food, and then later down the road, breeding them. As to the last, it was not clear at all how that came about, and I didn’t fully realize I was missing out for dozens of hours. I was not happy with that. At all. That’s one of my small gripes about the game–the tutorializing isn’t great.

I never liked the art style, but I accepted it at some point. I can’t remember the music, and I’m pretty sure I turned it off because I don’t like to listen to constant music as I play. The voice acting was solid, but the dialogue was thin. I have mentioned that when I played the original Hades (Supergiant Games), I still got original dialogue well past the true ending (which meant beating game ten times).

With this game, the repeat started after the first date, which was very early on. I’m not asking that every game has hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue, but I would like to get through at least a quarter of the game without hearing repeat dialogue on the regular.


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The year of being deeply divided (games-wise)

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It’s that time of the year when I give out weird and quirky awards to games that moved me in one way or another. This year, there were several games I played that I was really divided over how I felt about them. Several of the games I will be noting this year are very jagged in how I feel about them.

That said, in this post I want to mention my non-From game of the year from last year, Balatro (Local Thunk). Why? because most of my play time of it was from this year. When I bestowed it my non-From game of the year last year, I had just started playing the game. I did not know how deep it went, really, or how deep into it I would get. I wrote several more posts after that, and I played tons of hours more as well. I nearly got the plat, but the last two achievements are ridiculous.

One of my defining gaming moments of the year came from this game. It was doing all the challenges, which turned out to be such a pain in the ass. When I first tried them, I was fairly early on in my Balatro career, and I failed to do a single one. Each one has a gimmick to it, and when I tried them again, I was much later on and more savvy as to how to actually play the game. I started doing them one after the other, and I knocked most of them down pretty effortlessly.

Until I came to the end. There were two that made me raise my eyebrows. One was Golden Needle in which you only had one hand per round. I had trouble doing that with the boss The Needle (one hand), so doing it for every hand in a whole run? It seemed impossible.

And it nearly was. But I did it, and I was pretty proud of myself for getting through it. There was a guy in the Balatro channel of the Discord I’m in who started doing the challenges later than I did, but quickly caught up by the time I reached the last few. (There are twenty of them.) The last one, Jokerless, nearly made me lose my mind. The name of it pretty much tells you what the challenge is–beating a run with no jokers.

I tried it using my usually pair/high card strat and did not even come close. I had to look up strats for it, plus the other guy and I discussed it as he reached it, too. He was a straights guy, using it as his usual strat. I don’t do anything straight, but I was desperate enough to try. He gave me some tips, and I continued to chip away at it, pun intended.

It was awful. That’s when all the joy of the game was drained for me. I should have just stopped and put it behind me, but I could not do that. Plus the guy in the Discord and I were egging each other on, and I did not want to let him down. There was something cool about bonding with him over failing this challenge over and over again.

One way to beat this challenge was to do math. I was not going to do that so I had to make sure that I beat each hand by a comfortable margin. I watched a video on how to beat this challenge, and the biggest takeaway was to keep my straights open-ended on both sides (insert mildly risque sex joke here), even if I had the ace in hand. Oh, and of course the straight had to be 10-A for maximum chips. I pruned the deck like I had never pruned before–something I never did.


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Oh, the games I’ve played (this year), part three

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I want to talk more about the games I tried out this year and did not get along with. There have been severeal, I see, as I have been looking over my Steam Replay timeline. Some of them are just the demos, whereas others are games I’ve bought. Oh, here’s the post I did yesterday on some of the games I played this year.

The first one is The First Berserker: Khazan (Neople), a brutal soulslike. I have one word to say to this game: NO.

To expand a bit more, I was sighing within two minutes of playing. I will say, though, get paid, Ben Starr–get your bag! He’s in everything, and he’s the main character (the player character) in this game.

I am so tired of soulslikes glomming onto the brutal difficulty part of From games and thinking that’s all it takes to make a good soulslike. Oooooh let’s make it so you can die in two hits by a scrub! Ooooooh let’s have mob after mob attack you in a way that you can’t see them coming, nor can you separate them. Ooooh let’s make it so that the opening saps your will to live. And then let’s have a mini-boss who will break your back, your spirit, and make the game not fun at all to play.

Oh, and ever since Sekiro, let’s include a parry/deflect that is an integral part of the combat because god forbid a dev dare make a soulslike these days without it. God forbid that the combat be hefty enough on its own so that you don’t have to use the parry/deflect. And god especially forbid that you don’t crank the difficulty up to a billion before I’m even out of the tutorial area.

I don’t blame From for this, but I can’t help feeling a bit bitter. I was already the dregs when it came to From games, and now, I cannot hang with many of the clones. The only way I made it through the base game of Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ) was by maxing out a consumable-forward build and using said consumables to beat every boss from the fourth one on (or fifth?) in their second phase (and they all had second phases after that point). That’s even how I beat the super-hard optional secret boss at the end of the game, plus a drastic change of my build in general. I didn’t feel good about it or proud (well, some pride on the last boss), but I did what I had to do.

I played maybe an hour of The First Berserker: Khazan and quit without hesitation. It was not enjoyable at all, and it was missing the point of Souls games, at least for me. The vast majority of people play the From games for the bosses. I felt no joy in playing the game, and I knew I would have quickly been at that place where I could no longer play the game.

I don’t know when it happened, but I’ve gone from being eager and excited when a soulslike is announced to being disenchanted, jaded, and ‘ugh, no’. It’s almost a revulsion at this point. Take, for example, Nioh 3 (Team Ninja). It was announced at… I want to say The Game Awards, but I’m not sure. It was recent, though; I know that much.

I have earnestly tried to play the first two games and got my ass relentlessly whupped. I was not having any fun, and I eventually gave up on each (for different reasons). I was numb when I saw the trailer for the third game. It did not move me in any way, and if anything, the trailer turned me off of it. I can’t think of the last soulslike that excited me. It’s not that I’ve outgrown the genre, but that it’s grown in a way that does not include me. In other word, it’s dumped me and not vice-versa.

Side note: I don’t have loyalty to any brand, not even FromSoft. Currently, I buy their games on day one or even pre-order them, but I was deeply disappointed by Nightreign and their decision to make The Duskbloods a Switch 2 exclusive. If they eventually bring it to other platforms including PC, I’ll probably buy it–but I won’t be happy about it. PvPvE does nothing for me. I’m sure they’ll do it well, but it’s not my thing at all.

Look, just because I love past From games does not mean that they earn endless grace from me. I mean, they can make whatever games they want. Clealy, they don’t need my approval to do that. But, I don’t have to buy those games if they don’t appeal to me.

I’m curious if they’ll do a sequel to Elden Ring. I can’t imagine they won’t given how successful it was, but I would rather see them move on to something else. no, I don’t want them to return to Dark Souls, either. I would like a game in which the combat was not so emphasized (and hard) and there was more focus on the exploration.

Another game that I was really looking forward to was Date Everything (Sassy Chap Games). It had a very interesting premise in that you receive this pair of glasses that make it possible for you to, ah, date everything (well, not everything, but most things) in your house. And by things, I mean things. The microwave, bed, your diary, washer, dryer, vacuum cleaner, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Erika Ishii is in it, and they play ben-wa balls named Ben-hwa. You can bet I ‘dated’ them as soon as possible. It was pretty damn hot, but also weird, which is a good tagline for the whole game.

Ben Starr is also in this game; as I said, he’s getting PAID. He’s the doors in the game, and he’s one of my favorite characters. I like talking to him, and apparently, he’s 17 doors. I have found maybe five of them?

The dialogue is snappy for the most part, but it just does not gel for me. It’s trying too hard, and I did not vibe with it. All the names are puns, and all the dialogue is written as if for a sassy sit-com. Itt’s well-written, but just not for me. Also, I learned that once you ‘date’ someone (read, bang), that’s it. There are no long-term relationships. Granted, I don’t know how long the person who told me this had played the game, but they seemed to be pretty confident about it.

I did feel it was way too easy to woo a few of the people I banged, including Ben-hwa. I felt like I was enacting a main character fantasy with the support of all the NPCs. I would have liked it to be…I don’t even know what. More authentic? But that’s not the point of the game. I mean, the very premise is weird and wild, so why would the rest of it be grounded in any way?

I played maybe a half-dozen hours of it and never really warmed up to it. Regretfully, I put it away after twice giving it a real shot. I don’t think I’ll be going back to it.

 

 

 

Some of the games I’ve seen this year, part two

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Steam started doing Steam Replay a few years ago in which they break down the games you’ve played in the last year. Every pop media website seems to do some kind of wrap up at this time of year, but this is the only one I care about.

It shows how many games I’ve played this year (51!! With 37 of them being new); how many achievements I’ve gotten; which games I’ve played the most, and so much more. It shows which games I’ve played by the month, and it’s pretty neat.

In the Discord I’m in, we vote on awards in different categories. I had to turn in my ballot two days ago, which is a bit frustrating. I was holding out as long as I could because I wanted my Steam Replay to drop so it could prod my memory as to the games I’ve played this year. The shocker is that–well, I’m not going to talk about the shocker here because I’m going to save it for my silly awards later in the week.

I played Elden Ring in every month this last year except January–and in that month, I played Dark Souls II (Scholar of the First Sin) and Dark Souls III. I always have a FromSoft playthrough on the go, sometimes more than once. I will say, though, that because Elden Ring has a dedicated jump button, it’s hard to go back to the earlier games without one. Each of the previous  games (except Sekiro) make you use an awkward combination of buttons to jump. To make matters worse, it was a different combination of buttons in each game. Like, left stick forward and B in one and I think holding down B and then quickly pressing B again in another.

I think they went back to left stick forward and B for the third Dark Souls game, but I don’t fully remember.

I mainly play Elden Ring these days, but I do dip back into the older games. Recently, I went back to the OG Dark Souls to get Big Hat Logan’s big hat. I rarely do that quest in that game because it’s so long and convoluted, and it costs a shit-ton of souls. Why did I do it recently? Because I hadn’t done it in a while, and I wanted the big hat. Which, ironically, is not the best big hat in the Souls games. That would be the Sage’s Big Hat in the third Souls game–which is the best piece of armor in any game. Period.

Anyway, I went all-in on the magicks while going for Big Hat Logan’s big hat, which made me realize something about pyro that I had not known before. It scales. I mean, That’s not the thing I didn’t know because of course it scales. What I didn’t know was how much. Normally, I pump up my pyro as high as I can get it and just melt shit. Or rather, do large chunks of damage because I never really feel like I’m melting anything.


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Some of the games I’ve seen this year

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I normally play FromSoft games  and a few indies here and  there. I feel like I might play a huge chunk of ten games a year at best? And any year in which a FromSoft game is released (that I actually play, that’s a hint for later), that’s basically all I play other than casual games to change it up. In 2022, I played Elden Ring all year long. My guess is that I might have played one or two other complete games that year. I’m not sure, though, because my memory is completely shot now.

Ha. Yesterday’s post was supposed to be about the games I’ve played  this year, but it really was not. I’m (probably) going to tackled that topic  today and why I don’t usually play that many games a year. Why? Because I tend to get obsessed with one game at a time, plus a casual game on the side.

I’m fascinated by people who hop f rom one game to another because  I can’t  do that. At one point, I was playing Dark Souls III when Geralt showed  up Monster Hunter  World. Trying  to switch between the two games was very hard. That’s on  me, though. It’s hard for me to go  back to some games once I’m done with them.

Side note:  I have wondered if I have ADHD, but I don’t think I do. I have some of the traits, but not the main ones. Also, once I learned that ADHD and autism have several symptoms in common, I leaned more towards being on the  spectrum than  having ADHD.

Here are some games that I tried this year, but did not finish for a variety of reasons.. I will explain why I didn’t finish each one.

The big one is Tiny Bookshop (neoludic games). It sounded right up my alley. Quitting your job and going to a bucolic beach town in order to set up a mobile bookshop. I tried the demo and did not love it, but I decided to give it a go when the game came out.

I got into it more than I did in the demo, but it was so stressful. Why? For several reasons. One, there are very few save slots. This matters because of the next point. There are several side missions/character side quests that are very elaborate/involved/labor intensive. Also, the game does not adequately explain what you need to do for these quests or even the main mission sometimes.

This all matters because I was trying to do everything as I went along because, yes, I was trying to 100% it. That’s on me, obviously. There are so many side quests and different events, it’s hard to keep track of them. Plus, you can only go to one location a a day, which makes the quests rather tedious.


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