Finally finished Stormblood.

Of the FF14 that I've played, this is firmly in the middle: better than ARR; not as good as Heavensward.

The pacing of this expansion is super weird. Half of the expansion is a side-quest for the first half. And the way they split the locations so you don't fully unlock the first area until the end just left me unsatisfied.

The game is full of progress bars and number-go-up mechanics so it seems weird to suddenly have a strange non-linear thing all of a sudden.

Still, the characters were great. Some of the dungeons were quite a lot of fun (I'm glad I got to play Castrum Abania before they completely changed the Number XXIV fight this week!). And the Azim Steppe is currently one of my favorite places in video games.

So definitely something of a mixed bag: lots of good, lots of meh.

In any event: onward to the post-expansion patch content and then Shadowbringers!

About 7 hours in now. Still very early, but also...it's 7 hours in.

Still very much enjoying it. It's just so cozy and pleasant.

I don't think I care for the battle system, unfortunately. It makes a big deal out of turn order, but my characters miss so many attacks that it almost doesn't seem like it matters.

It makes the turns end up feeling random more than strategic.

Still, the dialog, characters, world, and music all continues to delight. Other than the combat, this game is just knocking it out of the park on every axis.

Much like Dredge, this is a game I've started playing to be chill and relaxed. Like Dredge, that's also an odd thing to say about a game that's explicitly horror and even has a couple mild jump scares.

But they are very mild and it's barely even a game. Also much like Dredge, I don't expect to have much to say about this game on an ongoing basis. I just want to track it since I am playing it.

I'm a little concerned that I'll get bored before finishing it; but hey, I have a tag for that too.

I don't think I'm going to have much to say about this.

I'm 4 hours in and enjoying it. I expect to finish it.

It's very chill and (surprisingly for a game tagged "Lovecraftian") relaxing and I've been playing it when I need to be chill at relaxed.

"Chill and relaxed" is not conducive to small microblog updates. So I am mostly putting this here as a record of having played it.

Got completely stuck in Okumura’s airlock puzzle to the point that I started feeling claustrophobic and all of my muscles were tensing up like I was physically in a small box.

So I watched a video walkthrough and got to the next safe room and now I don't think I need to play this again for at least a few days.

Definitely need a break.

I am frustratingly bad at keeping people alive in this game.

Given that the game makes such a strong emphasis on no one dying (even on Casual mode), I'm not sure I have much of a future leading any of these houses.

Even on Casual, the Internet tells me that it's important to keep everyone alive through every battle so they can get experience. But that is very tough to do when all the enemies get multiple attacks and can essentially one-shot most of my team.

It's fun but also not and it's becoming difficult to decide if I should keep going or move on to something else.

I pushed myself past my block and loaded up RF4.

Reminded myself how to farm and did a bit of grinding in the woods. It's mostly coming back to me now.

I can definitely say that Ventuswill is tired of my delaying and really wishes I'd just get on with the MSQ, though.