Recent Posts

1

Forum gaming / Re: Topic kicking

« Last post by Dragonium on February 16, 2026, 11:57:40 PM »

Came on to check on how this game is goin. Surprisingly still very active.

Bro at this point you might as well join the Discord and take the mask off. Greatest troll in Charas history. Undefeated.

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All of all! / Re: Games of 2025

« Last post by Archem on January 18, 2026, 01:03:08 AM »

I swear each year is just flying by at this point. Wasn't it January 2025 like three months ago?

This past year was a tumultuous year for me, with a lot of difficult moments and loss that made for a pretty miserable 12 months of my life. I'm glad it's over, but I still have a few phantoms of the past that I have to deal with before I can start forgetting everything awful that last year had in store for me. As a result, I didn't play quite so many games, and my list is shorter than usual. It's still got a few things worth mentioning, but you can kind of tell when shit really hit the fan by when the list abruptly kind of just ends.

January

Quake II (64) (N64, PC, everything)

This one's a little different. I've beaten Quake II multiple times throughout my life, but I never played through the N64 version of it until this past year following Nightdive's remaster (spoiler: a large chunk of my games listed here are related to the Quake and Quake II remasters). It was a fascinating way to see all the changes that were made to get the game running on such underpowered hardware back in the 90s. Really, it's kind of impressive to see the end result. It's a heavily trimmed down version of the original Q2, with only a few traces of the original levels intact. It completely lacks the format of levels being seamless progressions from place to place with load screens, instead having individual levels that are connected via a level select screen, the maps are fairly compact by comparison, the recreations of spots from the PC version are usually simplified in a number of ways, some enemies are absent, and the whole thing feels like it was built on the Quake 1 version of the engine, and the balance of everything feels a bit off. It's a pretty janky port (remake? demake?), but it's just cool to see it exists at all. I found it interesting as a piece of history, but I would never choose it over the PC version. Honestly, I'm not even sure how some parts of it were even possible to beat with an N64 controller; some parts were just brutal. I wonder how the PlayStation version was? I'll have to check that out and see the differences. I know it had mouse aiming if you had a PlayStation mouse, so that's a neat bit of trivia. I bet it had a lot of the same truncation that the N64 version had, and I'll have to check it out some day.

February

March

Golf Peaks (PC, Mac, iOS, Andriod, Switch, Xbox One)

This was a very neat little puzzle game. You play golf on an isometric course, but all your moves are predetermined "cards" that you use to set how you move the ball around. There's over 100 courses, most of which were really awesome. For $5, it's a remarkable deal. Uh, I guess I don't have much else to say. Check it out if you love golf, puzzles, or both.

Quake II: Call of the Machine (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series)

This was a brand new expansion made by Machine Games (makers of the modern Wolfenstein games) for the Nightdive Quake II remaster, and like we've seen in the past with other Nightdive remasters that featured new levels, they're really well made. It's really incredible to see two decades of level design advancements being forced into an old engine and getting a taste of what could have been. The new maps are visual treats, with all sorts of well-hidden secrets (and secret maps) that show how good a game Quake II really was. I think it's better than anything vanilla Q2 had to offer, and it really seems to understand how to use the enemies and weapons to their fullest potential. Instead of being a single campaign, it has a series of mini-campaigns that follow different soldiers through their own missions that all connect to a singular military operation, and a central hub that lets you choose which campaign to play through in any order you want. It culminates with some very cool story thread connections that I won't spoil here, but if you care about the classic Quake games, it almost feels like a tease for the future of the franchise. It probably isn't, but I can dream.

Fantastic Fist (PC)

This is an awesome indie puzzle-platformer with a silly premise where you play as a girl (a princess I think?) who has her arms stolen by the villain, so now all she can do is run and jump on her own. Lucky for her, she also has a magic giant fist that she can control to help her overcome obstacles. You move her around with the keyboard, but you control the fist with your mouse to interact with all sorts of things in the environment. Every world introduces new obstacles and enemies, and it can get pretty difficult at times. A couple of features don't work quite as well as you would want them to, and a few puzzles require what I believe to be an unrealistically high level of speed and precision to complete for most people, but I still find it very fun and charming. Check it out on Steam, there's even a demo.

Quake: Dimensions of the Past (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series)

Did I mention that Nightdive and Machine Games also did a remaster and new expansion for Quake 1? Because they did. It's about as good as the things they did with Quake 1, but the visual quality of some of the levels seem even more impressive when compared to how simple the map geometry of OG Quake maps were. This one feels kind of like one of those "master pack" expansions from back in the day where the levels were needlessly difficult as a way to challenge players who had already mastered everything the base game had to offer. The quality of the maps here is far better than those, since half of the map packs from back then were basically scraped from online map hosting sites and weren't always tested very thoroughly for quality. I thought it was a lot of fun, but it seems a lot of players disliked how little ammo you get or how nasty some of the traps and ambushes could be. And you know, that's fair. They definitely weren't playing around with this one. Lucky for me, I'm an old pro at this, so I got through without too much trouble. Pretty fun, but they really nailed it with the next expansion.

April

Quake: Dimension of the Machine (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series)

Similar to the Quake II expansion Call of the Machine, this is also broken down into mini-episodes, although more in the style of how Quake already had separate episodes where each one has a rune you're trying to collect. These maps are probably my favorites from any of the Nightdive remaster Quake games. They just really go all out here and make some crazy impressive maps. I had a really fun time with this expansion, and I really, really want to see Machine Games make a brand new Quake game. They've shown us that they really know what they're doing with this kind of gameplay and level design from these three expansions. Maybe one day.

Paper Mario (N64, Wii (VC), Switch (VC))

Yeah, somehow I've never finished Paper Mario. I always got to Shy Guy's Toybox and lost interest. It almost happened again. I think I just really don't like that chapter. Otherwise, what's there to say about this game that hasn't been said before? It's remarkably charming, has an art direction that feels timeless, the story is just the right level of silly, the dialogue is perfection, and the gameplay is still fresh. This game is just so good, and it's a bummer that Nintendo seems so unwilling to just make more entries in this series without messing up the gameplay in some weird way. If you've somehow managed to avoid playing it until now (like me), then please, do yourself a favor and play it. It's so good. Now then, I think I need to check out Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door soon.

May

Lost in Play (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Mac, iOS)

I love point-and-click adventures. I love that there's been a resurgence of these games over the years, too. While a lot of the classics had the issue where there was always some hair-pulling puzzle with seemingly no answer, modern games in the genre often do a much better job of making them solvable. No major brick walls killing the flow of gameplay here. This is a charming world of make-believe where you play as two kids who keep getting involved in antics with all sorts of cartoonish characters. There's no dialogue, so the game has to communicate everything with imagery, and I love when games (or any media) try to do this. It mostly works just fine, though a couple of things didn't come across all that well at first. Still, it's just such a perfect cozy comfort game.

Animal Well (PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series)

The first game from YouTuber videogamedunkey's game publishing company Bigmode, and it's a gem. This is another wordless game that's a puzzle-platformer metroidvania. While there's no real combat, the world gives off this vibe of hostility and danger at all times, and it makes exploring the halls and passageways of the world just feel both satisfying and scary. As you slowly start to pick up new tools, you slowly begin to figure out not just how to navigate the world, but how to deal with all the threats. It's one of those games that hides so many secrets that you'll probably never find them all without looking things up, but that's fine. If you have the patience to slowly unravel everything, you'll be very satisfied with it. Definitely recommend.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD (PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360 (kinda), Xbox (very super kinda), Switch)

Okay, so this is kind of a technicality. I've played Serious Sam TFE tons of times as a teen. I never played it through from start to finish, though. I would always just use level selects to play the levels in a nearly random order with friends This applies to the whole series, really. I've played every level for several of the games, but never the way they intended. This was me playing through the newer version of the HD remaster from years back (which I believe was itself a remaster of a remaster), and I had a nostalgia kick that left me replaying Serious Sam solo. It's pretty much just like I remembered: relentless, fast-paced action with insane amounts of enemies on screen and turn-off-your-brain shooting. Tons of fun, very silly vibes, still a great game. Definitely better with friends, but not bad to play on your own.

June

July

August

Toree Saturn (PC)

The latest entry in the Toree series, and it's more of the same. Low-poly, bright colors, fast, movement-based platforming that's obviously inspired by the 3D Sonic games. Pretty much every game in the series is the same game, but each release is like a remix of the last. This is the most expensive entry so far ($5 compared to the usual $1), but it's consistently fun, and since you can get the whole series for less than $10, it's kind of hard to be mad about them being so similar. This one even has a Tony Hawk-inspired minigame. The minigame is, admittedly, not the best, but it's still pretty cool. There's enough bonus content here that I think it's worth the 500% price increase.

September through December

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Completed Games and Demos / Re: Posted 16 Years Ago - Neverspring (Durance of Magic)

« Last post by Archem on January 17, 2026, 11:30:34 PM »

Looks pretty cool. I'm mostly just happy to see that there are still people making things in the RPGM community.

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Completed Games and Demos / Posted 16 Years Ago - Neverspring (Durance of Magic)

« Last post by Cartographer on January 16, 2026, 05:08:43 AM »

This place hasn't changed, still that same old blue... Wow, it's been years since I've been here and I still love it.

I recently stumbled upon a Google search that was like a blast from the past. It was a link to this old post they still have here in archives:
http://www.charas-project.net/forum/index.php?topic=26992.0

Man, that feels like forever ago. I felt like I should come back and post the results after all this time. I finally completed this project in March of this year 2025 as "Neverspring Chronicles" and released it on Steam. It by no means blew up or anything but it was more successful than I had expected so that was pretty cool. I started this way back on RPG Maker 95, kept it on RPG Maker 2003 for a while, moved it to RPG Maker MV, started porting it to Unity but then decided against it and went back to finishing it with RPG Maker MV. I wanted to keep those retro roots.



Step into a distant land where ancient gods slumber, waiting to be awakened by the wrong hands. Lead a party of reluctant heroes caught between the ambitions of a driven adversary and the mysteries of a shattered realm. Explore ancient ruins, treacherous forests, and forgotten temples, all while building relationships with a cast of unforgettable characters in a strange and fantastic world.

Synopsis
Marrick and Natasha were just kids when a violent coup in the Imperial Senate took their father's life and split them apart. One became a street-wise thief on the run from his past. The other, a prodigy sorceress raised in secret behind monastery walls. But fate will bring them back together when a mysterious relic offers them a clue to their father's murder.

Features
- A classic 90's era style JRPG adventure from humble origins almost 20 years in the making.

- Show your support for the little guys and see the hard work of multiple independent artists and musicians come together to form a strange and fantastic world.

- Traditional sideview RPG combat with just enough modernization to keep things fun and engaging without losing that 1990's feel.

- Hand-crafted world maps and dungeons filled with secret passages and hidden rooms to explore.

- Interact with a cast of 10 playable characters through a well-paced story on a distant world.

- Character system lets you progress and customize your skills through the use of Magitech devices.

- Tons of loot and items to customize powerful builds.

- Side quests and optional content sprinkled throughout the world.



So it took forever but I finally finished it!   
If anyone ever gets curious you can check it out on Steam at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1747220/Neverspring_Chronicles/

5

All of all! / Re: Games of 2025

« Last post by Apex on January 05, 2026, 02:39:44 AM »

I had a good year for games, all of these are games I finished at least to the credits, and have never finished before. So they may not have been new, but they were new to me:

Arzette: Jewel of Faramore - pc
Path of Exile 2 - pc
Gunner's Heaven - PSX
Guardian Heroes - Sat
Quackshot - Gen
Penpen Triicelon - DC
Mr. Mosquito - PS2
Donal Duck no Mahou no Boushi - SNES
Splatter House Wanpaku Grafitti - NES
Splatter House Part 2 - Gen
Demon's Crest - SNES
Shockman - PCE
Magical Pop'n - SNES
Airzonk! - PCE
Mutation Nation - NGCD
Magician Lord - NGCD
Forgotten Worlds - ARC
Gun Force II - Arc
Zupapa! - ARC
In the Hunt - ARC
Clif Hanger Edward Randy - ARC
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - PC
Alien 3: The Gun - ARC
Dragon Gun - ARC
Metal Slug - ARC
Metal Slug X - ARC
Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus - PS2
Metal Slug 4 - ARC
Metal Slug 5 - ARC
Klonoa 2 - PS2
Metal Slug 6 - ARC
Dark Cloud - PS2
Monster Hunter Wilds - PC
Blaster Master Zero - PC
Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
Metaphor Refantazio - PC
Look Outside - PC
Narc - Arc
Terranigma - SNES
Castlevania Adventures - GB
Sonic Colors DS - DS
Metal Slug 7 - DS
Megaman V - GB
Godhand - PS2
Wario World - GC
Bomberman Jetters - GC
Bonk II - PCE
Starfox Assault - GC
Bomberman 64 Second Attack - N64
Linkle Liver Story - SAT
Astlibra - PC
Mario Kart World - SW2
Undertale Yellow - PC
Arabian Fight - ARC
Beast Busters - ARC
Pokemon Scarlet -NSW
Clair Obscure Expedition 33 - PC
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - NSW
Silent Hill 2 Remake - PC
Kirby Airride - GCN
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble - NSW
Alundra - PSX
Donkey Kong Bananaza - SW2
Metal Gear 2 - MSX
Soul of Darkness - DSi
SMT IF... - PSX
Wario Land Shake It! - Wii
Alligator Hunt - ARC
Final Fantasy Four Warriors of Light - NDS
Hollow Knight Silk Song - PC
Bonk's Adventure III - PCE
Shin Maou Golvellius - MSX
Contra 4 Duel Spirits - NDS
Monster World IV - GEN
Sonic Racing Crossworlds - PC
Newer Mario Bros (rom hack) - NDS
Monster Tale - NDS
SIlent Hill F - PC
Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne - PC
Mortal Kombat 1 - PC
Doremi Fantasy - SNES
Final Fight - ARC
Steel Gunner - ARC
Strider - ARC
Bubsy 2 - GEN
Strider 2 - PSX
Aleste - MSX
Alest Gaiden - MSX
Aleste 2 - MSX
Musha - GEN
Zool - GEN
Super Aleste - SNES
Robo Aleste - SCD
Once Upon a Katamari - PC
GG Aleste - GG
GG Aleste 2 - GG
Kasumi Ninja - JAG
Zool 2 - JAG
GG Aleste 3 - GG
Splatoon 3 - NSW
Toziuha Night - PC
Bubsy Fractured Furry Tales - JAG
Attack of the Mutant Penguins - JAG
Spongebob Titans of the Tide - PC
Metal Gear Solid Delta - PC
Doom Dark Ages - PC
Metroid Prime 4 - SW2
Kirby Air Riders - SW2
Tales of Arise - PC

Whew. I built an arcade machine this year, so all of those are emulated, but I wouldn't dream of collecting arcade machines otherwise, so oh well. It's a fun little arcade machine, I threw in the two players with 8 buttons each, a track ball, and two of those Sindenn light guns. Great times!
I also bought a Jaguar in the later part of the year and grabbed one of those Game Drives for it, so I feel obligated to play a bunch of Jaguar games, regardless of their quality. Can't say I enjoyed Bubsy Fractured Furrytales as a game, but it was a fun experience to push through such an awful game to the end. I also built a new computer at the end of the year, so that explains the focus on PC games at the end there.

Some notable titles for better or worse:
Game of the Year for me is a tough choice, but I'd probably have to go with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it was really really good, and it was amazing to get to see so many places from my favorite game of all time remade. It's not perfect, and it's clearly not a straight a remake at this point, but if you can accept they're going a different direction with things you can find tremendous enjoyment in both Remake and Rebirth. Highly recommended.

Deltarune isn't on the list because the game isn't technically completed yet. I didn't notice that when I purchased it on Steam early this year though, so when I got to chapter 4 I realized things weren't wrapping up I found a bit of sadness in knowing I was going to be waiting at least a few more years to see the conclusion. However, what is there is easily GOTY material for me. It's a blast, it's got so much going in favor for it, and regardless of whether or not it's finished at the moment, I still say OST of the year hands down.

Astlibra gets a shout out for just being an amazing hidden gem indie title on Steam. If you like Metroidvania style Castlevania games, and don't mind some fun grinding, then this game is absolutely worth your time.

My biggest disappoint of the year is probably gonna draw some ire. It's gotta be Expedition 33. It was alright/good, but holy cow with the praise and hype this game got I had pretty high expectations. As an RPG it doesn't do a single thing new or unique. The plot twist people are fawning over is lifted from SO3 where somehow the same plot twist is considered one of the worst in gaming history. It's not a bad game in the least bit, but I can't get over how disappointed I was as a huge RPG fan. There is nothing special about this. I'm excited to see the studio keep making RPGs because as a first game it was good, and I bet they can make something great in the future that might live up to the praise/hype this got. Also, I might be the only one on earth who hated the OST, I don't like tracks that emphasize vocals over instrumentation, and it just sounded like unintelligble groaning noises half the time. I'd rather have something complex and high tempo, the only song I actually remember enjoying was the hand looking boss fight, and even then I can't recall a single note from it. Music thing is entirely taste, I'm happy for you if you like it.

I was a bit disappointed with Mario Kart World. I was twice as disappointed with Mario Kart World when Sonic Racing Crossworlds and Kirby Air Riders came out, because they both blew it out of the water. I would probably have to give the gold to Mario Kart World, but Sonic Racing Crossworlds is also stellar and is worth picking up if you like Kart racers.

SMT IF and 3 were really fun experiences. I got SMT 3's hardest ending and that extra final boss was brutal. Just the way I like it.

Aleste 2 was probably the hardest game I beat this year though, holy cow. It's a short SHMUP and worth playing, but my god it's hard. Silk Song wasn't nearly as hard in comparison.

I just played way too many games to talk about all of them, but I'm happy to discuss any of them if anyone wants to.

6

All of all! / Re: Games of 2025

« Last post by Prpl_Mage on December 31, 2025, 01:10:35 PM »

It got too long, continuing here:

Dark Souls 1 Remastered (PC) Seamless coop mod
We were enterering December and I wanted to finish an old classic before the year was up. It's usually a Zelda game or survival horror, but this time Dark Souls 1 won. The Black Friday sale had the game on 50% sale or something. And then my friend was like "hey, we should try the seamless coop mod". And so we did. Aside from some things bugging out (things that teleports the players), Khalameet and some others, it worked really well and we could play the entire game from start to finish together without summoning signs and whatnot. Also, it was possible to use the mod to turn invasions off. But it was great, fun to have company while playing it. And if this was enjoyable then maybe that could be the solution to why I haven't even bothered to purchase Elden Ring.


A Link to the Past (3DS / SNES)
Since we breezed through DS1 with the coop mod I decided to revisit an old classic. I've had this as a downloaded game on my 3DS for some time and it's been a minute since I played it previously.  Just like with Dark Souls I still remember where some of the things are and where you can go to get stuff and such. Although I did realize a few things that I didn't when I played this last time. Such as the invisible / invulnerable cape. I never got that one before, I didn't even know it existed or that you could use the hermes boots to rush into gravestones. I also figured out some of the puzzles that I didn't in the past. Overall, a good experience. This is the Zelda game I want. I liked BotW and such, but it lacks that same feeling.


Pokémon Shuffle (3DS)
I had this on my 3ds since way back and also had it the android version which my kid played. It's a match them up game, move the thing to another place to get 3 in a row or better , watch everything fall down and get combos etc. Kinda like Puzzle and Dragon and all other Bejeweled styled games. But this has some Pokémon flavour as well. Each stage is a pokémon and after winning you get a chance to capture it. If you do it's added to your roster and you can bring it along for future stages. You also get a rank for each stage which will accumilate to unlock bonus stages. It's fun, but it also has stamina to prevent you from playing too much (unless you spend money to get more).


Other

Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era Demo (PC)
It's a demo, not the entire game. It was released back in October while the complete game is estimated for 2026. It plays like a Heroes of Might and Magic game though some things are changed. Combat is slightly changed again to avoid the power creep of unit abilities from later games in the series. Towns are back but they share improvements with a "law tree" with passive bonuses for your entire faction instead of having to rely on a single town. Some classic factions and army compositions are still around while some has gotten a bit more variety. But the art style is kinda odd. I can't really put my finger on it though. It just kinda looks like the style of a 3DS game in some way. Not really the old style, not really a modern style.

Yugioh Master Duels
My friend really really wanted me to get into this, but I just can't. I've tried to purge apps and games from my life with all these daily quests and other things that takes a fun thing from being a fun thing and instead becoming a habit, and then an addiction. I've uninstalled a lot of apps and such but kept the ones that I actually enjoy, and not just the ones I use everyday because the companies have found a way to make me play them every day.
Rant aside, the game itself is solid, although it overheats my phone a bit. And it's also played with the screen turned to the side which makes it really obvious to everyone present that I am currently playing a game. Also, this makes it so that text becomes tiny. And let me tell you boys: Yugioh cards have A LOT of text. There's a lot to get into and the different deck archetype scenarios really help with that. But there's so many different mechanics and decks and do this then that, but also this that chains together. Sometimes a turn takes minutes to execute everything in the right order. Which is fine, but it's a bit too much of a time investement in my life currently.


We got a tablet for the kid since we were travelling abroad. Lots of different trash games/apps were tried during this period. Not gonna bother listing all of them or why I kept them or trashed them. So just gonna give some honorable mentions.

2 Player Games (Android)
This is a collection of mini games where you play against another person. The only ads are for the company's other games and the come once every 5 games. There are no microtransaction pop ups or anything annoying like that. Some of these mini games are great app versions of exisiting games, like Sea Battle, which is Battleship without all the doublechecking. We have Animal Stack which flips the screen inbetween players, Air Hockey, Snakes etc. Lots of fun games to play where the controls work well for being played by 2 people at a tablet.

Wingspan (Android)
A digital version of the board game Wingspan. Turn based and bird based game with lots of different ways to score. There's not just one strategy to win but many different ways to earn points and build your "engine" for later rounds.

Lumosity (Android)
It's a "IQ brain training" game. Each day you get to play 3 games for free and then there's usually a 4th one that is available from time to time. It cycles unless you pay for a yearly subscription to get access to all the games at all time. It was nice to have games without all the monetization and all other marketing techniques to get you to play more. Although there is a daily thing that we of course returned to every day... So it's not innocent.

Merge Puzzle: Number Games (Android)
Not really a great game, it's made to make you play just a little more. But the premise is simple. Draw lines between boxes of numbers of the same number to make the final box a collection of the sums. Combine these boxes to get even higher numbers. It sounds a bit braindead, and it is, but it works. Still, no excessive marketing or anything like that. You can spend coins if you ever run out of possible matches, but you also get coins by doing long combos. So it usually isn't a big issue.


Frosthaven (it's a boardgame)
The hyped sequel to Gloomhaven. It added some town management, some more complex mechanics and a lot more complex characters to play. The enemies also have more stuff which can become a problem if the randomized monster action cards draw the most annoying card over and over or such. It's still a nice design that no dice are involved in the game, instead you have decks of cards: You have your attack modifier deck and your action cards, items cards, monster cards etc. So it's a bit less wingy than other games. The game now follows 3 distinct questline paths and then a bunch of side scenarios that you unlock from the paths and you choices (it's a legacy game). Most of the changes were good and we enjoyed this after approximately a 1 year hiatus from Gloomhaven in our group and played it once a week for about 2 years until we finished up and left it this spring.
The one thing we really disliked however is the Puzzle Book... After completing an early scenario you get the puzzle book with some EXIT / escape room-like puzzles. This in itself isn't a problem, the problem is that huge chunks of the game - including the final scenarios are locked behind the need to solve those puzzles in order... And while the first puzzles are like algebra and symbol/letter substitution the rest gets unclear and messy. Why? There are no clues to be given whatsoever aside from a description of a dialogue between a researcher and your party. The substitution puzzle for example gives you no letters nor a cipher of any sort, so we just assumed that we would find that later by playing the game (you don't). No, you are simply expected to just guess all the symbols through trial and error so you can decipher the text... Then it escalates quickly with different kinds of puzzles ranging from looking through the scenario book for specific stats, numbers etc (without telling you where to find it aside from a lore-related hint - a hint that makes no sense if you played the scenario in question like 4 months ago and forgotten about the details of a specific description). Or needing certain components unlocked that you may or may not have unlocked because there's a random element behind that. And as mentioned, this is all fun when you're into that headspace. For a solo player this is probably a blast: but not for a group of 4 who meet up once a week. Gloomhaven had a similar thing, but that was optional and unlocked something extra at the end for those who wanted. The problem is that this is mandatory to even reach the end of the game: 2 of the campaign paths can't be completed without the puzzle book... And that's a bad design choice. So yeah, that left a sour taste (as you can probably tell).


Games that returned:

Risk of Rain 2 (PC)
I kept playing this and got a friend interested as well. I managed to clear some more runs, the DLC paths as well. Unlock all the characters, most artifacts that you can toggle to alter your runs (Command still being the best one to eliminate some of the randomness at times when you're just not in that mood). Tried to finish more challenges to unlock additional items and skill choices etc. It's still a fun game and there's another DLC that driooed with 2 new characters and such, I haven't gotten that one yet though but probably will.

Voidtrain (PC)
We continued our run of Voidtrain, getting through more and more gates, researching new recipices and unlocks etc while also progressing in the game proper. We unlocked the winch (which is different from the grappling hook) and allows you to explore "puzzle islands" if you keep your eyes out while training on. Enemies got more difficult to kill, our weapons got better and our number of weird void creatures significantly increased (and broke the game balance with their abilities). In the end we had finished all the research recipes currently available and had enough resources and then some. This meant that collecting resources as you drive the train between gates became less meaningful, we had enough for food, healing items, ammo boxes etc. So the rest ended up in storage boxes and we started speeding through with our train to get to the next gate faster instead, only stopping for the puzzle islands or arenas in hopes of getting some good drops from the chests. But then we completed the remains of the current state's story and got tired of hoping for better weapon drops. Because with the story out of the way, there wasn't much else to do until the next update.

Hades (Switch)
Yes I know there's a sequel now. But I kept playing this from time to time, something about it being so accessible with auto saves every time you enter a room and such so you can in fact pick it up and play. I managed to clear the game a few more times (10+ in total) which unlocked the credits. I also did it with all weapons, even with the added Heat from making the game harder. I unlocked more stuff, started improving my reputation with the NPCs to progress further with that and such. It's still a well designed game and as you try out new skill combinations you have an easier time making decisions in future runs. The one thing I kinda miss compared to games like Risk of Rain or Dead Cells is that you don't unlock a lot more options or such. When you clear the challenges you get rewarded with resources used to buy furniture and items to increase repution with NPCs... it's just not the same. And increasing the heat of your run also rewards you with the same kind of resources. So even if you decide to make the game harder, you still have pretty much the exact same things as at the start.

Soul Calibur VI (PS4)
Honestly, I just messed around with the character creator. Making characters from other medias in SC6. Like "What if Abelard from Rogue Trader was in SC? Or "Maybe I should make another Cloud Strife, but this time with his Kingdom Hearts 1 outfit".  But you'd be surprised how many hours of playtime you can rack up when messing around with something creative like that.

Pokémon Live TCG (Android)
This year's releases and decks have been boring. Around 95% of all of my decks become unviable after the card phasing rotation thing. Meaning that old cards are no longer available for normal and ladder play. You can still use them when playing against your friends like in the past. But that meant making new decks with the new cards that has been released. And those new cards have been pretty boring. There was the "trainer" decks, with pokemon and support cards etc that only affects a certain subtype of cards, such as Team Rocket Mewtwo, and Team Rocket Base etc. Then there was a big focus on Mega pokémon EX cards and specific cards connected to that. It just makes the game stale though.

7

All of all! / Games of 2025

« Last post by Prpl_Mage on December 31, 2025, 01:10:04 PM »

It's that time of the year again.

It's another year of buying a whole lot of games but not really playing a whole lot of games. I mean, I do play games but I spend the most time in Coop games playing with friends and family rather than these long solo journies. But I try, but then I get stuck and sink close to 100 hours into a title. Kinda hard to clear the backlogs then. But let's talk a bit about the games I played since the last post.

2024: http://www.charas-project.net/forum/index.php?topic=29679.0

Posting my usual list of games played and such below. Feel free to post your own as well!


Necromunda: Underhive Wars (PC)
Another 40k based game in Necromunda. A tactical skirmish game that transpositioned the board game rules from Necromunda into a good video game tactic system. Your characters have hp values, move values (mp) and action values (ap) and you spend them to traverse the beautiful maps to take down your opponent's team in a skirmish shooter / turn based combat hybrid kinda similar to what X-Com does. The game was built around the multiplayer aspect though, where you can create your own gang from 3 house options (5 if you get the DLCs), name and customize your characters with different distilled roles and advance your team as you play games against others in operations - Like you would playing the tabletop version of it. However, like so many other Games Workshop licensed games it is mechanically sound but lacking in some parts, the typical "the deadline is up, time to deliver" feeling. It looks great, it sounds great, the fmv cutscenes are cool, the voice actors are pretty good and the music is once again top notch for setting the tone. But, the maps aren't big enough compared to the amount of movement some of the classes can do (especially since the game refunds you movement if you move vertically by stairs and such "since you're not moving away from the initial point). The enemy AI isn't really up to match either. Depending on the map generation of objects they sometime make pretty dumb decisions such as camping in a corner and activating overwatch, or walking into a barricade over and over instead of trying to break it down. Or do actions that just feel like stalling, such as moving one way, using a buffing skill, move some more, get a reaction shot, retreat back to the start. Or my favorite, run one way, repel down to the floor below, bump into something, then run over to a zipline to an elevator, call the elevator and then ride the elevator all the way back up to where they started. Was it fun to play? Sure was, the campaign is fine but since you're playing with presets then Operations is where you have the most fun as you upgrade your team and can try operations in different difficulty levels as well but it would've been fun to have other players to play with or a game loop like X COM which has an ending.


Eiyuden Chronicles Rising (Switch)
This one is a nice little game. It's a platformed styled game with rpg elements. You start with a single character following a linear story that unlocks more areas, facilities, misc skills, upgrades and mechanics as you go along. Then you start unlocking partner characters to bring along on your outings which changes things up. From that point onwards you get a little more control over the game (even if the story beats still control your progress and what's available). You collect resources and gold, defeat enemies for exp and spend your stuff to upgrade your characters' gear or gain buffs. It can get a bit grindy at times as you return to earlier dungeons to get specific resources for side-missions or upgrades but there's also plenty of QoL features that it doesn't end up being a pain aside from equipping the right accessories. Was the story anything special? I mean no, it's what you can expect, but at the same time it had enough of its own identity to feel good enough. As you beat the game you get some post game sidequests and hardmode which boosts enemy stats and such. And then you can complete all the dungeons in hard mode, do the final sidequests and upgrade a bit more before it's all over.


Pokémon Violet (Switch)
I didn't play this myself. Instead I was backseat playing / translating for my kid. A growing interests for all things pokemon eventually lead to him wanting to play this. The last game I played was Sun or something and I didn't enjoy that one much. I mean, it's still pokémon and follows its formula but it's clear that their intendended audience isn't a 30 something gamer. Which is especially clear with this game. The game is just too easy, that's it. And that's not a problem if that is what you want. And all those help systems is what makes it a good game for a new little gamer. I'm thankful that they kept the message box system for all dialogue and even in most cutscenes, that gives me time to translate what is being said and explain information and mechanics. However, a clear difference between this and the old GameBoy games I grew up with is that the allowance of more characters in each message box (and the number of message boxes in total) is that there are both longer messages and a lot more figurative langauge being used that a second language learner just can't figure out on their own without context or help from someone who knows. Also, I never expected so much decision paralysis from my kid. Most games so far has been pretty linear but the openess of this games (like all the pokemon games) means that you just have too many things you CAN do. For example, in the city you get introduced to some characters, classes, shops, areas etc. And it was too much. I had to backseat there and give him directions and goals to complete or he got all overwhelmed by it. Btw, he never made it to the end because of another game further down.


The TALOS Principle: Road to Gehenna (PC)
This is the DLC of the game and I waited a bit until I started it. I felt kinda done with the game after finishing the main story but a friend of mine insisted I play this as well since I had it. It's a new story played out in the same world. Most of the new puzzles rely on you having solved and learned from previous puzzle's mechanics. So most are a bit of the more tricky kind. The story itself with the chat forum is also a nice change of pace from the main game's 1 on 1 conversation. Also the old school pick your adventure style mini games were fun. I do wish they had done more for the story though. But aside from that there was no new puzzle elements and all in all a total of like 16 puzzle maps to clear. There were a bunch of stars as well, I managed to get 1, but it was fun if you want a bit more of the Talos gameplay.


Against the Storm: Keepers of the Stone (PC)
I got the DLC for the game since I enjoyed playing the base game. Note to new players is that you need to reach citadel level 9 before you get access to all the things from the DLC and that the new biomes will only show up once your current run ends. The DLC added more complexity but also some more resources that can substitute others for some of the recipes. The new Frog race functions a bit like the Fox race in that they have a few more special things going for them unlike the base races. Some of the new cornerstones (passive bonuses) are really great while others are a bit too specific. All in all worth getting if you're into your 2nd or 3rd run of the game and want variety.


Monster Hunter Wilds (PC)
And then it was time for another Monster Hunter game. Like before we're talking mission-based large enemy battles with occasional resource gathering and tracking. The older games in the series focused more on the resource gathering and tracking aspects unlike the latest games in the series: this, Rise and World.
The new quality of life features include a ridable mount like in Rise, but this time it can be told to auto-run towards your target on the map. Focus mode allows you to aim freely mid animation instead of getting stuck hitting where the enemy is not. And you can swap your primary weapon for a chosen secondary weapon while riding. You also have NPC hunters in some of the story missions but that just makes them too easy.
The story missions are now only new hunts, no gathering quests or repeated monsters being forced on you which means that you kinda breeze through the story if you want to. And you can get a lot of materials by breaking monster's wounds, and also save quests that are guaranteed a specific item type drop towards the end game.
All of these changes make the game accessible to new players of course, and it values your time. But it also helps a bit too much for veteran players that will beat the monsters on the first try and sometimes walk away with enough materials to craft everything they're interested in. It's not a problem in itself, but the problem comes as always with motivation and the game loop. The game is about fighting monsters right? But what if I don't have a reason to fight the monsters anymore? If I already got all the drops I needed? I've crafted the weapons and armor sets thanks to the new drop systems and is all set for the end game. But the end game at release is just slightly stronger versions of the monsters. And their only special drop is random materials that can be crafted into a weapon. And the later added monsters had some unique armor sets to work with and some more challenge, but still not hard enough to stop the monster part grinder. So by reducing the grind of the game they've also taken away some of the motivation needed to play it. It ended up being a bit stale, I got all weapons upgraded and unlocked armour sets for their looks, and ended up playing other things instead. But then the Omega battle dropped, a FFXIV collab where the monster has more MMORPG mechanics and forces you to have more working teamwork to get through. It was fun to have something that you didn't beat on the first try effortlessly, and where you actually needed to think a bit about your gear. Unfortunately, the later Gogmazios fight, while cool, wasn't quite as challenging and mostly ended up being grinding for end game materials.


Tales from the Borderlands (PC)
So this was always a weird thing to me. Visual novels, or virtual novels or whatever they used to be called. But this one is also interactive in the sense that you make choices that affects what happens in the game. Other virtual novel I've gotten in the past were basically just a track and then you could press some buttons to see pictures, zoom in or get additional info or somesuch. This is a bit more akin to puzzle adventure games in that you have some sections where you're actually in control of one of the characters and solve some sort of (simple) puzzle. Then you have a large section of cutscenes with timed decisions like your classic Mass Effect and such or an action scene with typical 2004 QTE. The fun part is that the choices actually seem to matter, sure - some things will happen either way but there's a lot of branching that happens based on your choices unlike mentioned Mass Effect. It's not just a different voice line and then back to the script. The game itself is played out in the Borderlands world somewhere between BL2 and BL3, there's a lot of references to BL2 and what happens in the story, so if you care for spoilers and haven't played BL2 yet, don't start this just yet.  Other than that the game is divided up into 5 episodes and each episode has 6 chapters. You can tell there's a good writing team behind this game, the characters are well written while it still adds some of the Borderlands humour from time to time, but more like a comic relief rather than making it too much (unless you always pick the silly options). Also, great cast of voice actors, they really make the game worth it even when you replay it to see a different branch and realize that you can't skip any cutscenes.


Fate/Extella The Umbral Star (Switch)
First, this is a Warriors-esque game like Dynasty Warriors or Hyrule Warriors. I have to admit that I haven't played any of the other Fate/X games before btw, so not sure if the tone of the game is new or if it's always been like this. You need to be in a specific mood to play these warrior games, they are pretty straightforward and the story inbetween is mostly decent (but goddamn there's a lot of waifu fan service in this one...). Each chapter is a battle, and the battlemap is divided up into different sectors: defeat enough enemies in a sector to get their lieutenants to spawn and defeat them to sieze control, repeat until you control enough sectors to spawn in the boss character of the map, fight it and you're done. But you level up, you find stuff and improve your characters so that you can tackle even more difficult maps and progress. There isn't a lot of customization for how the game plays though. Hyrule warriors had a weapon system for example. It's a solid game but after playing through the main stories (4x10) and each character's side story (13x3) there wasn't much else to do. There is a hard mode and very hard mode, but aside from a few aggressive AI improvements it's mostly just a stat increase from what I can tell. Enemies take a lot more hits to down and you take more damage, and after playing the game for some time spamming attacks left and right you don't really want more button-mashing.


Mainframe Defenders (PC)
I got this because it looked like a nice tactics game in a retro style. You know a bit like Fire Emblem, but with mechs, and randomly generated missions. You choose 4 mechs at the start, then you need to depart on missions to earn currency which is then spent to upgrade your mechs' passive abilities or to purchase new weapons, items or even more passive abilities for your mechs. The game is a bit unclear about what is going on at times though, such as you starting at Tier 1, and then you complete some missions before getting bumped up to Tier 2 which offers better rewards and more difficult enemies etc. But the end goal isn't that clear, and there isn't any sort of boss or anything before you move up the tiers which other games do. The game got a lot of different difficulty settings and you can also unlock additional mechs and items by completing your run. And just like some other rogue-lite games your run ends when all your mechs are dead or you don't have the currency to repair them, or you know when the beat the final mission which comes at the end of Tier 3. When playing Momeka's vertical slice it got me thinking about this game again.


The Last of Us Remastered (PS4)
Yeah I know, I should probably have played this before. The HBO series based on this was a blast to see, so I figured that some sort of cinematic third person shooter, would be nice. In many ways the gameplay is similar to Uncharted, but you have a broody protagonist instead of a witty one and a bit more focus on suspense and horror. It leans a lot into stealth sections though. You sneak around to capture patroling enemies and take them out as quietly as possible to clear the route to your objective. Like many others of these games you have chapters played out in an area, there is some sort of clear or vague goal and then you go about finding your way to do it. Then you move on to the next area etc. It's a nice game, even if some sections can be pretty intense when playing on the higher diffculties. It doesn't take much to die so you are expected to make use of the resources you find and not go in guns blazing (except the end...). This also included the "Left Behind" side story which acts as an extension and prequel in a sense, it was okay. Also there was some sort of pvp mode with a bazillion microtransaction DLCs that I didn't try.


Ring Fit Adventure (Switch)
Another backseat situation. This is one of those situations where I just don't get Nintendo. They developed this special controller with sensors and all that, but then they only released a single fitness game for it. It's a fitness game, you need to do different fitness exercises to play the game. Which is great for kids, since they need to move and all that. Also for my kid since this whole deal with multitasking two different movements at the same time proved troublesome when we played Minecraft. So this was all about learning how to game and understand that actions achieve different things in game. There are some different game modes with a story mode thing, exercising without the gamefied version, mini games, rythm games etc. He played the adventure story mode which is divided up into 10ish minute stages that combines different movements. Mostly it's jogging in place and doing high knees, but to collect gold and stuff during the stage you also need to do some presses where you squeeze the ring together for different actions. And then there is combat where you face of against enemies in turn based battles. And all your attacks are different fitness exercises. How many of these you need to do depends on your difficulty to create a workout kind of deal. All moves also has a Wii Fit Trainer type showing you posture and pace which is great since you can try to match it when something is new. Also you get a lot of instant feedback from the game when you do things right or not which helps you keep going and knowing when the form is right.


Dark Souls 2 (PS3)
Yeah I'm late to the party I know. I've enjoyed Dark Souls 1 over and over and just kinda liked it a lot and kept at it because part of me just didn't feel like starting another learning experience of a new world, loot etc. So I've owned this game for years, in physical copy and all. Just like Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, but I've never gotten around to play them. But now I did. And some systems are different but the things that made Dark Souls enjoyable is still there. Most of the bosses and areas are also interesting where you can tell that there is a design philosophy behind the decisions they've made. The most significant change is that enemies stop spawning after you have killed them about 12 times. So that difficult path leading up to the boss room? If you kill everything but fail at the boss or before, eventually you're not gonna need to bother with all of the enemies. But this also adds another issue: you can't grind as much. Because enemies eventually runs out. (But there is a covenant that you can join that counteracts this). It's open, sometimes confusing. But it's what I wanted from the series so I'm happy with it. The game is a lot bigger than Dark Souls 1 though, like the number of bosses and areas blew my mind. I kept thinking it was over but then there was another area and another boss. PS, I did not have the DLCs. I have ideas for challenge runs and such, but maybe I should move on and play DS3 and BB instead?


Warhammer 40k Darktide : Arbites Class (And Battle for Tertium update) (PC)
The chaps over at Fatshark delivered a new class for the game in the form of a DLC, that's the DLC: A new class that you can choose when you start a new character. Which is fun since they have their own stuff (including a dog). The class is the Arbites, a grimdark Judge Dredd kind of archetype. Alas, like all "new class" updates to games there is of course a pretty decent surge of new Arbites characters clogging up the game for when you want to play your own Arbites character which can make the mission matchups a bit strange. But at the same time they also released another content update which added some needed variety and content in the form of a more curated "campaign structure" instead of just the randomized mission board. The mission board is still there, but a new player isn't just thrown into the mission hub after the tutorial, they can choose to take on these special missions instead which makes a clearer job at presenting character motivations that are easily lost in the chaos that is the game. Still great for coop, that's why I play it. Also, towards the end of the year another DLC class was released. But I didn't get around to purchase that one.


WH40k Rogue Trader (PC)
Owlcat really outdid themselves with this one. This is not the immersion or quality of BG3 of course. But they've managed to make a Warhammer 40k game without focusing on epic warfare and make it into an exciting single player campaign RPG. The game is divided into acts with different premises and systems to explore in that part of the story. You bounce between planets and problems a bit like in Mass Effect in some of the acts and the interactions you get depend on the party members you brought with you and your customized protagonist (and the skills you've put points into). The game is good at explaning typical WH40K terms for players new to the franchise while also catering to the neckbeards who are already invested btw. I think people appreciate that. The game is doing a lot of things through text boxes though, which some people might frown upon wanting a more immersive experience. But for me it works, I can take my time to read and make my decisions and skip things quickly at times (which is also how just about all games worked in the past before cutscenes and voice acting became standard). One thing I appreciate is that by the end of the prologue you have plenty of party members to make your party diverse and the first couple of missions unlocks even more of them to choose from. Some of your new characters share archetypes with previous characters as well. But since they have different backgrounds etc, they are not the same. Even if you might put your points into the same skills at times if you want them to have the same function in combat etc. There's a lot to say about the game, but hard to say it without getting too detailed about the combat system or about the story. I may be biased having read a whole bunch of 40k novels and also playing the tabletop game but it does a good job especially if you're new to the franchise but not interested in Space Marines 2 or stuff like that. Also I got Season Pass 1 that included Void Shadows and Lex Imperialis. The first of those two was the best DLC content in my opinion with a sidestory that affects your flagship, the crew etc the most. Lex Imperialis is instead focused around your "capital world" but most of it plays out elsewhere like any other sidequest.


Helldivers 2 (PC)
Despite all the memes about this game it really delivers. Helldivers 1 was a top down twin stick shooter ish. But it had a great gameplay cycle that kept players playing. Now this game is the same basic thing as the first game, but instead we have the popular third person shooter perspective and much improved graphics. You have a galaxy map with humanity fighting against aliens on 3 different fronts. You pick a system and get an overview on whether or not the planets are liberated. Then you pick a planet that is not, and take on missions to increase the liberation bar for the planet and eventually for the entire system. During the mission you drop down on the map and go to your objectives to clear the mission. You can also explore to find enemy nests/barracks to destroy or other sidemission thingies for more rewards before you head to the extraction zone for some base defense. At the end you get rewards based on how well you did. Points are used to unlock more strategems, which are the activated abilities you can use during the mission. But you can also find samples which is used to upgrade your strategems overall. Or you can earn medals from linked missions which you can use for your warbonds to unlock more things. A warbond? Yeah it's like a battle pass thingy, but it's not time limited. So you use your medals to unlock some cosmetics, some new weapons, emotes, maybe a strategem etc. And the loop continues. To unlock warbonds you need supercredits though which can be bought for real money or randomly found in points of interests during missions. Also, this is NOT a solo player game. You need to play with others to succeed at higher difficulty. If the game feels unfair, that's because you don't have a full team of 4 who can have the gear to counter enemy types and situations. Sure you can play single and turn off matchmaking and such, but you're gonna have a bad time when the higher difficulties throw more niched enemies your way. But like with all mission based games, what's the goal? The game doesn't have a campaign or such, but you can switch between difficulties. You have your leveling up and currencies and such to unlock more stuff, and every week or so there is a challenge for the entire community. But just like with Darktide and Monster Hunter: Eventually the fun runs out.


Human Fall Flat (PC)
I got talked into getting this for the coop, this is very much a coop game. You have wonky controls and different stages. Around 10 in the base game and then another 20 or so which were added later in post launch updates. And then there's also the workshop where people can upload their own creations. It kinda reminds me of Little Big Planet in the way that you play the game: You need to reach the exit of the stage, most of the obstacles are that - obstacles. So it's not a murderfest. Instead you need to figure out what to do within the boundries of the game's mechanics. And weird physics. But while Little Big Planet was a platformed experience this is some over the shoulder mess. A good mess mind you. The game also has around 147 steam achievements for doing things aside just getting to the end of the level. If you have at least 1 friend and time to kill, give it a go!


Party Animals (PC)
This one is weird, since there's a lot of different game modes. If you decide to do "classic" quick games you sometimes end up in last stands in pairs which is like a competitive brawler with items. Then you can sometimes enter a 1vs1 team fight to collect the most gummis and bring to your base. There is also the "Smash Mode" which is only last stand maps, 6 of them and you add an extra passive upgrade after each stage. And then there's "Nemo Kart", which is a mario kart game with 2 maps, and then the same 2 maps but backwards. In custom game you have even more game modes like Infestation where you need to play hide and seek and others. The physics are a bit strange and wobbly, the characters are cute as ****, and of course there is a store to unlock more skins for the characters and different currencies to achieve that. There's also weekly challenges and daily challenges etc. which means that you can easily spend 6 hours in 3 days to complete them to get the currencies to unlock skins... You need to clock the right time to play though to ensure that you don't need to wait for minutes to match up to a game. Maybe then you don't need to spend all those hours. Honestly though, you don't need the xp points from playing or the currencies for skins to enjoy the game. None of it adds any special benefit as far as I can tell.


Darkest Dungeons (Switch)
I really enjoyed this one. It's a turn based rpg kind of thing. But you "play the town" instead of specific character. You recruit characters and as you play you gain perks and quirks which affect how they function. But if a character dies - they are dead, and you need to recruit new ones. As you set out on dungeons and such you'll deal with traps, enemies, interactables etc which will give you rewards, but also deplete your hp and add stress. If any of those reach their limits it's a bad time for that character and they need to rest up in town before they set out on a new dungeon crawl. And here's the thing: if you don't complete a dungeon then you need to retreat, and the characters don't like that, so you can't just enter and mock around a bit. Now, I got some complete edition with a bunch of DLCs and such. I activated them all for my first game and kinda regret it. The game even warned me about the Court of Roses adding more difficulty and complexity but I went with it either way. Oh well. The game is long enough as it is, with different dungeon areas you can visit of different diffculty, and the higher the difficulty the more you need to level up your characters so they stand a chance against the bosses (who don't mess around). One thing I liked about the battle system is that it's turn based and your formation matters. See, skills have a requirement on your characters' position out of the 4 possible. And skills also target enemies in different positions. So a character in the two back positions may use a healing skill, but not their melee skills. Some range skills can target any enemy, some can only hurt the two middle positions etc. This also goes for the enemies. So there are times when you want to use skills that reposition your characters or the enemies to prevent certain attacks and such once you get used to the enemy types. Great addition to a classic turn based formula.


Gemporium (PC)
A sweet little indie game combining the typical element of "resource gathering" with "shopkeeping". You know the kind. But you run a gem shop and need to enter the mine to mine gems. How you do it is a mini game that is very much like the mining sections in the pokémon games. I think it was Diamond/Pearl/Platinum that had it. Then when you have your gems you return to the shop to remove dirt in a mini game and then polish them with some sweeping motions. And then you receive your customers who have a preference and dislike. You then invest your money into upgrades for your mining or shopkeeping. It's not especially difficult in itself, and even if the day time is based on real time even in menues, AND you have a debt to pay off every 3 days it's not very stressful. It mostly helps with the motivation because the game isn't that long.


Death Road to Canada (Switch)
I sure am playing a lot of "start a run and get as far as you can" games this year, are they roguelikes? I have no idea. They're easy to pick up and you learn a thing or two from playing which makes the next run better. And some sort of unlocking system that makes the next run more varied. Death Road to Canada is one such game. It's a top down zombie survival game. You create your team, you set out in a vehicle. Get choices to stop and loot different locations or other events along the way. But there's also a timer. Stay too long in the same location and it's gonna get dangerous. There are zombies here and there at the start but then they start pouring in the longer you stay. So get in, loot stuff, get out. Find survivors, food, gas etc that you need. Maybe even a new car. It also has coop which is great, playing on the switch you don't need a lot of buttons to make this work. One thing that the game does well, (which probably annoy a lot of people) is that it leans into the whole apocalypse setting. Things never go well: you run low on resources, or get mauled by a bear in an event etc and I'm here for it. But that's not to say that everything is grimdark or anything, there's plenty of humour in there and odd events. But even so it doesn't pull any punches from time to time. It's you against a dying world and a press of zombies.


Hexcells (PC)
Someone here suggested it last year. I think it was Archem. But it was a great little game to play. It's Minesweeper meets Picross/Nonograms. You have hexes and you either try to lock the hex or reveal it for a clue/number. It's either or. But as you play more rules and clue types are added and the last couple of stages out of the 30 took me a bit longer than I wanted to because I tried to get the achievement for clearing all stages with a perfect score (making no errors/wrong guesses). It was just what I needed at the moment, and after those hours I could put the game down feeling like I've achieved something, unlike all those roguelites I played.


Game & Wario (Wii U)
So I figured that this would be a great game for some fun party style mini game action. But it turns out that most of the game is designed for single player. That's kinda odd. There is in fact only 4 multiplayer mini games in the game. One is pictionary, one is a "disco" where you need to time inputs with the music. Then there are 2 great ones: Fruit is a game where one player uses the Wii pad to control their character, a thief, while trying to steal the fruit on the stage amid all the npcs that walk around. The rest of the players don't control anything, they just watch the tv screen trying to figure out which NPC is the thief. Different stages have different gimmicks, awesome. Then there is Island, where you take turns to slingshot some odd goblins onto platforms for points. Like Fruit, each stage has its own gimmick that makes it worth playing a few rounds. But the rest of the game consists of Wii Pad related mini games for one player who is using the Wii pad. Some of them are fun, some are too easy, some are just annoying and some completely overstay their welcome with their game length.


Runbow (Wii U)
A fun platformer competitive game where the main mechanic of the game has been used in other platform games as world gimmicks. The stage have different states, so some platforms are only there in one state and in other states not. In the case of Runbow this is done with colours. So if the background is red then you can no longer see the red platforms etc, so you can't stand or jump on them no more. And then it cycles between the colours according to a pace with the music in the background. There are some different modes such as battling each other or racing to the finish. But if you downloaded the DLCs (which you can't anymore) you can also play together with others on some campaigns of sorts. But it's a bit like New Super Mario bros that you mostly get in each other's way. So if you really want to win, well then you're better off playing on your own just like with that game.


Affordable Space Adventure (Wii U)
A 3 player coop game where you work together to control a terrible space ship to get through 2d stages. One person uses the game pad and controls the ship's systems while one person controls the lights, scanner and weapons. The last person controls the actual steering of the ship. So it takes some communication to get through the stages, new mechanics are introduced as you get to future stages and such. But the person with the Wii pad is doing most of the work in a way as you need to tweak the ship's systems, or even turn off systems to get through the puzzles or obstacles. It starts off pretty slow with simple stages that are all about navigating. Then the difficulty increases with more complexity throughout.


Resident Evil 7 (PC)
I like this revival of the Resident Evil games. And yes I know that this is like 10 years old by now. The two RE Revelation games really hit it for me with being a callback to scarier times. But this takes it one step further with the first person camera and traveling areas with pretty much invulnerable enemies (which is what put me off at first honestly). But what really gets me is that it manages to set the tone well. Already in the prologue there's plenty of suspense and disturbing moments. There's all these noises, and doors being pulled on and walls that can be broken down etc. The game has plenty of stealth sections where one of the antagonists is stalking around and you don't have any weapon to use. And since we have all these special enemies, you know that they could suddenly, literarly, burst in at any time. I mean, a lot of it seem to be scripted, but it's not an obvious boss room or anything like that. If the fight needs more space the enemy will break something you took for granted was a bearing wall and get to it. There are also sections with more traditional enemies that you can get rid off to make traveling between the puzzles easier. Did it give me the creeps at time? Yep. Did it have a few good jump scares? Yep.


Borderlands 4 (PC)
It's Borderlands. The people at Gearbox decided to get a new game out there as BL3 wasn't that well received by the players and Wonderlands is kinda niche. It's a bit back to basics while throwing in some new mechanics. You have 2 specials like in Wonderlands, one for pressing F and one for holding F. You have med kits which works like potions in Diablo 3/4 as they are on a cooldown. You can always double jump etc. and can unlock a glider and grappling hook. After playing some clunkier shooters like Helldivers it felt nice to have total guns-blazing for a change, you can aim as quickly as you move your mouse and enemies don't need special tactics to defeat. The coop works great and all that aside from the disconnecting issues. But just like in BL3 the game is going for a sort of open-world feeling. Which isn't new: BL1 and 2 had those areas as well inbetween the more linear dungeons. But now there aren't that many proper dungeons to vary the gameplay from the big open areas. Instead it's all one huge MMORPG like map complete with a summonable bike. Special places are marked on the map, there are world bosses etc. Also it's kind of a reboot or something? It doesn't play out on Pandora, there are new weapons manufacturers etc. Was it the game of the year? Not for me at least, but for the coop we enjoyed it nevertheless.


Vampire Survivors (Switch)
Last year I played Keeper's Toll, which was obviously inspired by Vampire Survivors - But I only knew that based on videos and such, I hadn't actually played VS myself. So I decided to do it as the game went on sale on Switch for nickels. You probably already know what this is. So this is more a comparison to Keeper's Toll as I played that one first. I like the fact that there's a lot of things to unlock in the game, new weapons and new passives which makes future runs exciting, something that KT lacks as it instead focused on the skill trees. There are also a whole lot of characters with slightly different stats or some sort of passive ability. Keeper's Toll had 6. The stages are also different and once you unlock the map you get more out of it. But then all runs end up pretty much the same as you play: All characters share the same weapons and passives, but they start with different ones. So I can play the knife character but then get the area damaging garlic. Or I can start with Garlic with the Garlic character but still end up getting the knives. Of couse, as you unlock more things this gets more varied as well. But it also just ends up pretty random. This is where I personally think KT is more fun as each character has their own setup of attacks and passives (although some are shared across all classes). So even if two characters in KT had a stab attack they would develop differently as you leveled them up depending on the class. One got more stabs, another got faster stabs etc. So each character actually feels different. But what is the thing I miss the most from Keeper's Toll? Bosses, KT had proper bosses with animations and attack patterns and such. Everything in VS just follows you around aside from the final map. Still, both are fun games if you want to spend 15-30 ish minutes getting bigger damage and earning some gold.

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All of all! / Re: For (eventual) survivors: we're about to be 23 years old!!!!!!

« Last post by Prpl_Mage on December 31, 2025, 12:47:32 PM »

Drats, I totally missed that you posted this. I've been to comfortable with the Discord group we made.

Thanks for starting this page back then Alex, it was a big part of the internet life for many of us as the forum culture was in its peak.

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All of all! / Re: For (eventual) survivors: we're about to be 23 years old!!!!!!

« Last post by carmen on October 20, 2025, 06:15:38 PM »

This place is…ancient

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All of all! / For (eventual) survivors: we're about to be 23 years old!!!!!!

« Last post by Alex on August 14, 2025, 08:41:51 AM »

Howdy World!

So yeah, September 4th 2002 was the official birth date of the entire Charas project. Not the Forums, but the generators.
But heck, means on September 4th 2025, it will be our 23rd year around!!!!

TWENTY THREE!!!

Just thinking at this in Internet terms sounds so incredible.
Back then there was no facebook (2004), no youtube (2005), no google maps (2005). Eons ago, in internet terms.

From time to time I visit the homepage to get rid of sporadic spam messages. I just realized September is round the corner again.
Charas will be 23 and I was 25 when I created it. Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!!!!

Well, I really don't know if anybody still lurks this place from time to time. But as proimised, I'll keep it alive no matter what.
If these words reaches anybody, thanks for being a part of that and STILL paying a visit!