It’s time to shake the rust off, massage those kinks out and do some backloggin’!!
How Many Days Was It?
Good day backloggers!!! After more than a week since the last Daily Backlog update, I’m finally back clicking and clacking away at the keyboard! I gotta be honest though, I’m feeling a bit rusty. But, it was all worth it because my much needed vacation really hit the spot. Oh, and I was able to play a butt ton of games. Which includes a butt ton of completions (relatively speaking). So, for today, I think I’ll stop my rambling and get right to the games I’ve played over the past week and what I’m currently playing!!
It is That Good
The first completion on my list was something I finished up much sooner than I expected, and that was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night from ArtPlay or one of the other 25 developers that worked on it. I’m honestly not sure which is the main one! When I say “sooner than I expected,'' I don’t mean it was a short game either. No, it was still a 30ish hour game, it just completely consumed me! I didn’t expect to get so hooked. So much so, that I sat down and play it straight, until I beat it. And that my friends is an ode to how much I enjoyed myself!!
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, really was a fantastic game. One that hit all the right notes and sang a hauntingly beautiful metroidvania melody that soothed my Castlevania fanboy-isms! With the added benefit of improving upon many of the features you’ve come to love in those classic games. It may not have been perfect and the graphics at times may have left something to be desired, but dang, if it wasn’t a blast to play!! I mean, I literally woke up early and stayed up late, several days in a row just so I could play it! It was like being a kid again during summer vacation. It was also quite beneficial to my addiction that I was actually on vacation!!
I’ll be releasing a full review of the game in the coming weeks so I won’t say too much more, but definitely keep your eyes peeled for when it drops!
Pint Sized Vania
Speaking of Metroidvania, the next game I knocked off the backlog this past week was actually the game I played on my Thursday night “Let’s Backlog” stream, Xeodrifter from Atooi! When I saw that this and Mutant Mudds was on sale on the Nintendo eShop a couple of weeks ago, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to finally pick it up and play it! One, because I’m a huge fan of all things Metroidvania, and two because it was basically dirt cheap!
I also thought it would be a perfect fit for my stream since it was action packed and relatively short. So short in fact that I finished it in one sitting!! And I gotta say, it was a superb and concise little action platform. It condenses all the things that make metroidvanias so fun and rolls them into a tight little package! There were secrets to find, bosses to fight and a ton of backtracking, just like what you’d find exploring the depths of the games that inspired it. My only real complaint was that it took a bit of time to get used to its floaty controls and there wasn’t too much variety to the bosses and monsters. But honestly, for the time commitment required and the cost even at full price, this is definitely worth a playthrough!
Now that I’ve finished up Xeodrifter, I think I’ll have to dive head first into Mutant Mudds sometime soon. Which I’m hearing is quite challenging. But I think I’m up for the task!!
Coordinated Cooking
Next up is a game that my wife and I have been dying to play since we finished up the first one, and that’s Overcooked 2! And you can tell we were dying to play it because it didn’t take us long at all to knock it clear off the backlog and into the fryer. That’s probably not a saying, but I’ll go for it.
Anyways, just like its predecessor, Overcooked 2 was super addicting, challenging, frustrating, satisfying, and wonderfully charming all in one! Just the sheer amount of coordination needed to play this game is mind boggling, but that’s what makes it so fun! One moment you’re celebrating with your partner as you knock one challenge out of the park and then the next you’re throwing your controller across the room in frustration as you dropped you fully prepared meal into the river AGAIN, for the FIFTH TIME!! But there was no way we were leaving this game without three star-ing each and every level! That fourth star though… EFF that.
We even played the DLC that came with the season pass, which happened to be significantly harder than what came with the base game. But they were also super fun and added a lot of cool new mechanics. Especially the stages found in the Night of the Hangry Horde. Seriously though, Overcooked 2 was a fantastic game, and you can be sure we’ll be back to it once the devs release the third and final piece of DLC!!
Bomber Nostalgia
Phew! Have you all noticed that I played a lot of games? I gotta tell ya, it’s kinda getting ridiculous!! But we’re not done yet, because the next game was something I played with my son last week, Super Bomberman R from Konami!
After finishing up Riverbond with my wife and son a couple of weeks ago, I was really trying to find another cooperative multiplayer game that we could play together again. And that’s when I remembered I had Super Bomberman R. You see, I have fond memories of playing Super Bomberman on the SNES with my brothers when I was a kid, and I thought it would be super fun to share that experience with my son! Especially with how bright and colorful the latest edition looked.
It didn’t take long for my son to get into it either. I mean, it’s Bomberman after all! And luckily, Konami pretty much kept the same formula that made the originals so great. Some may argue that it’s a bit stale, but to me, it was perfect. The cutscenes were goofy, the dialog was nonsensical and the action was just what I was looking for! It also helped that Konami added a ton of selectable characters to the roster, including some from their most popular series like Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania! I really wasn’t expecting much from it, but Super Bomberman R ended up surprising me. And I’d recommend you check it out if you’re a fan of the series!
Rhythm and Birb
Last, but not least, the final game I was able to complete over the past week, was actually given to me for review from the fine folks over at PQube, Songbird Symphony!! An excruciatingly cute puzzle platformer with a hint of rhythm based gameplay. This is another game I’ll be writing a full review in the near future so I won’t spoil it here. But all in all I thought it was a pretty decent and unique game.
Songbird Symphony was very charming and very much reminded me of the classic SNES Disney games like The Lion King. Which is most definitely not a bad thing. In fact the actual platforming and puzzling portions of the game were quite fun! But then when it came to the rhythm portions, it kinda fell apart for me. It never felt like I could get the timing down (which could just be me) and it didn’t help that it was sometimes hard to decipher what buttons I needed to press and when! Which I attribute to how often they mixed up the note layout and how poorly designed some of those layouts could be. All in all it was fun, and I think it’s worth checking out, but I’ll get deeper into that with my review.
Day One Hundred and Thirty One
Well my friends, I think that’ll do it for today!! I did plan on mentioning some of the stuff I’m currently playing like Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, but since I already rambled on about five other games, I think I’ll just save that for tomorrow. Oh and of course, keep an eye out for my reviews of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Songbird Symphony coming really soon!
Until tomorrow folks, have a great rest of your Wednesday!!
Currently Playing
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PlayStation 4)
Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God (Nintendo Switch)
Total Backlogged Games: 728 … the number of late nights that got later because I kept saying just one more stage!
Total Completed Games: 39 …the number of controllers I went through trying to get the PS1 version of Symphony of the Night to work properly.
Want to contribute to the website? You can send your submissions to the below email!
Want to know what other shenanigans I’ve been up to? Then follow me on Twitter @BacklogOdyssey
And you can keep tabs on my backlog by checking out the Backlog Odyssey Backloggery game list!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://www.backlogodyssey.com/the-daily-backlog-131/