July Catch Up: Erdtrees, PSPs and DLC


I've been busy studying for the N2 Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) over the last month, and haven't had time for words about games. Fortunately, that's over now, or at least it is until December, when I expect I'll be resitting it! 

But that's ages away. So, words about games:

1. Chants of Senaar and the Dream of Fluency

It was fitting that I played Chants of Sennar, a game about an incomprehensible, fictional language becoming comprehensible, as I studied for my Japanese exam. It's about language acquisition through context, experience and a dollop of guess work. It's far from realistic, of course, as it mightily speeds up the process of learning a language. Think Tom Cruise picking up nuanced grammatical structures just by listening to the locals for a few weeks in The Last Samurai, as opposed to me still struggling with Japanese fluency after countless years living here and fits & starts of committed study. 

While it may fast track the process of language acquisition to a comical degree, it does capture the excitement and frustration of never quite knowing exactly what's going on. The rush when you understand, the downers when you don't, and the stress of a native speaker talking at you at a hundred miles an hour, once they've sensed a base-level of comprehension.

Chants of Senaar opens with you waking up in a strange and unfamiliar land. Your progress is dependent upon you picking up the language, solving puzzles and speaking with the locals. You record your moments of intuition in a dictionary-like journal, with pages being ticked off once a full set of your interpretations have been confirmed. Visually, it's very striking, and the bold use of colour is probably my favourite aspect. Unfortunately, there's far too much running back and forth between locations, but it doesn't massively outstay it's welcome. Certainly worth checking out if you have Game Pass or see it appear in the sales.

2. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

It took me a minute to get back into the swing of things, having not played Elden Ring for two years, but it has absolutely been worth it. The Shadow of the Erdtree is a generous expansion, and while it's certainly challenging, I haven't found it to be frustrating (I started at level 150 with a maxed-out Zweihander). The map is new, but it's all quite familiar, and while you're mostly able to wander free, you'll be well equipped to figure out where you should go and when you should go there. 

I've felled all of the main bosses, besides the final fiend, as well as many of the optional ones. I had two very brief goes at the last boss, which was enough for me to realise that some levelling-up was in order. I went back to The Lands Between and cleaned up the handful of bosses I'd spared (read: been battered by) on my initial playthrough, including the mighty Malenia, who my Mimic Tear and I smashed into submission just the other night. What a difference 20+ levels make!

Unlike two years ago, I've been playing offline, as I let my PS+ subscription lapse a while back and have no intention of renewing. It's a different world without player messages scattered about and minus the temptation of summoning more skilled players to help me out. To be honest, I think I might prefer being cut-off from the masses. NPC co-operators become more meaningful, my Mimic Tear more vital, and I'm forced to just git-gud when I hit a wall. It seems more fitting for this world to be a lonely one, even if I'm no longer sure which hole I'm supposed to put my finger in.

3. What Else I've been Playing

I've been jumping between several games since my last post about Venba, mostly via Game Pass. I played Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, which I thought was entertaining but, much like the first one, is fairly forgettable. Humanity was more interesting, but it lost momentum, and ultimately my interest, once it started to introduce multiple new gameplay mechanics. It's at its most compelling when things are kept simple, and the new challenges come from the level layout rather than new commands and powers. Moving on, Dordogne is a charming little adventure that successfully generates a nostalgia for a time and place that most players won't have experienced. And finally, I really enjoyed Still Wakes the Deep. The setting is perfect, the voice acting adds so much character, and I greatly appreciated how you're kept to a very tailored path, so there's no fear of missing anything. I wasn't as impressed by the creature design, but I found the ever-encroaching sludge of oil and sea water to be the real terror here. It puts an always-evident time limit on your survival and is the force behind the most frightening moments.

I lost a week to the Vampire Survivors Contra DLC, and also dipped back into the previous expansions. My daughter and I have once again been having a blast with Street Fighter 6, having picked up the first Character Pack in the sale, and I mostly had a good time with Alan Wake 2: Night Springs. It's a bit hit and miss, but it's delightfully strange and perfectly brief. The joke in Number One Fan never landed for me, the North Star chapter was better, but Time Breaker is where it really hits its stride and makes the whole expansion worthwhile.


4. I Bought An Excellent T-shirt


5. Rediscovering the PlayStation Portable 

I'm temporarily hooked on shopping for PSP games on Mercari. There are just so many of them! New listings seem to appear every few seconds, and I'm constantly discovering titles that I never knew existed. The PSP really did have a little bit of everything. 

This recent uptick in interest was kicked off by the PSP Draft on The Back Page Podcast. PSP games are still very reasonably priced, and although I've had a PSP since 2005, I've never had a large collection of software, so there's a great deal left for me to discover. Recent pick-ups include The 3rd Birthday, Resistance Retribution, Jean D'Arc, and the Street Fighter Zero 3 and Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower Value Pack, which I found for a surprisingly good price at the new-location, Akiba Trader. Once I'm done with Shadow of the Erdtree, I intend on getting through a few of these games. Promise.

I even bought a case-modded PSP 3000 on Mercari, but it was very shoddily put together and I had to return it. A shame, as the bright orange skeleton case was very pretty and very garish. I have learnt my lesson, and will not be buying retro hardware online ever again! I was also surprised by how flimsy the 3000 is in comparison to the original 1000 model, which is what I've always owned. It feels like a good twist will split it in two, and the UMD door lacks the satisfying, spring-loaded action of the old model. The screen is a big improvement, however, and I may yet buy a colourful 3000, if I see one in-store somewhere.

6. Summer Fun

For the most part, summer in Japan is appalling. Or at least the weather is, being that it's unbearably humid and hot. With temperatures already creeping into the high thirties in early July, and feeling much worse than that due to the humidity, it looks like we're in for a roasting summer. Fortunately, there's plenty of game-related stuff going on to take my mind off the damp heat. 

First up is indie game festival BitSummit, which kicks off later this week in Kyoto. I went last year and rather enjoyed myself, but I'm yet undecided as to whether I'll go this year. It'll be a very last-minute decision, and will mostly be down to whether I can justify the cost of the Shinkansen and hotel.

Also starting this week is the Monster Hunter 20th Anniversary exhibition in Roppongi, which I'm keen to check out, if not just for the colourful rubbish in the exclusive store. In early September, I'll be attending one of the Yokohama dates of the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Orchestra tour, and I'm very much looking forward to receiving my buster sword glow stick! And then of course, at the end of September, it's Tokyo Game Show. My favourite.

It'll be Christmas before you know it.

7. The Flitting

My brother's book, The Flitting, is now available in the UK. It's nice to be able to write that! It'll follow shortly in other regions, including the US in November.

The Flitting is about a great many things - it's a memoir, a study of butterflies, and a literary biography with plenty of pop culture mixed in - but mostly it's about the final year of my dad's life, passions shared, and what happens when we run out of time. I still can't quite wrap my head around my dad being the subject of a book, but I'm beyond grateful that I'll have a new way to remember him. I couldn't be prouder of Ben.

Comments

  1. I actually just picked up my PSP again too after unpacking the last of my stuff moving into my new place. Been playing a bit of NBA Street, Crazy Taxi, Infected, and ordered the arctic Motorstorm (forget the name). Also pleased to see my emulators still work for it. Gonna see if I can find a used game store nearby, PSP games are usually fairly cheap.

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    Replies
    1. Hey! Good to see I'm not the only one picking up my PSP again. And yeah, PSP games have yet to explode in price, though I'm sure that's coming in the next couple of years. Now's a great time to build up a library of games. Also, I'd completely forgotten that there was an NBA Street on PSP - will pick that up as soon as I see it! Cheers

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