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Energy Is A Type of Store Currency

Many games have Energy systems.  The biggest Collectible Hero / Squad RPG games like Marvel Strike Force are based around Energy. One comment I often hear is that a game like that based around Energy system has more player directedness and agency -- you enter into a session figuring out what you want to spend your Energy on. Usually on furthering some sort of PVE instance or farming a node for materials/shards. We can really think of this as: Energy is really another currency with the various PVE instances or Campaigns serving as Storefronts that take Energy in exchange for materials/shards. Yes, there is RNG and yes, there are failure conditions, but at heart it's a transaction. Some unique properties common to most Energy games: Energy is a resource that accumulates through time All players accumulate Energy at the same pace All players have the same Storefronts (Campaign/PVE nodes) to spend Energy on Players spend differently based on their goals  E.g. Player P1 spends on node 4
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Chained Echoes Thoughts

I bought Chained Echoes after seeing it shoot up the Opencritic 2022 Hall of Fame at the end of the year. It's a tremendous one-man effort and a unique mix of systems and features taken from various JRPGs. I was captivated from the beginning and finished it as soon as I could.  There are 3 main things that made it stand out from the JRPG genre. Plot -- It is interesting and fairly easy to follow, with the Xenogears-inspired motifs of reincarnation and sin, and an ending with vibes seemingly inspired by Attack on Titan. There's some heavy-handed preaching in the story on important issues which makes some of the dialogue cheesy but the overall arc is really strong and engaging. In particular the creator did a really good job for its opening act -- stylish, taut and impactful. Characters -- Most of the cast is memorable and don't follow the JRPG mold. All of them have distinct motivations and histories, with Glenn, Lenne, Victor and Kylian forming the central web of the plot.
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Completed Slay the Spire Ascension 20, all characters

I've finished Ascension 20 for all the characters in Slay the Spire.  Between PC, Switch and iPad it took me 900 hours to do this. The durability and value you get here is one of the best qualities of a great roguelike, and I love that. That said, I'm not sure if I want to ever attempt anything like this again even though I did similar on other roguelikes like Dungeon of the Endless and FTL.  I kept playing even after I complained about how it felt like playing against random chance and it is not really about skill when you're playing at the highest levels. So the grim, absurd reality did not end up killing my desire to climb this mountain. Dice mountain. That's the power of a great game (and ego).
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GOW Ragnarok Thoughts

As a big fan of the original, I was hyped for this one. I played it for an hour or three every day until completion, and it's a great game for the most part. Some thoughts. 1. It's very fun to play The excellent combat in the 2018 prequel got better. Combat as an abstraction is about problem solving expressed in 3 primary ways: Character kit, Enemy design and Level design. GOWR is better in every respect especially Enemy design which was previously too limited, and more space and verticality is incorporated into fights better it never hits the traversal heights of an Uncharted or Returnal.  Outside of the strong underlying combat interaction design, the actual expression in the visuals, animation, SFX and ambient commentary is top notch. 40 hours into the game in the final level, I'm still thrilled and satisfied at performing an R3 execution.  The world is also larger and filled with content, which makes it a joy to explore. The RPG component worked about as well as it did
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Yakuza: Like A Dragon Thoughts

I haven't played anything in the Yakuza series since Y2, but Y:LAD appeared on PS+ as a free game so I quickly downloaded it as the series has come up a bit since the early days. Some of what I think are my more interesting thoughts: 1. The JRPG fantasy integration is creative The realistic Yakuza aesthetic doesn't lend itself well to the variety of enemies you encounter in a traditional JRPG so the developers made some interesting transitions to accommodate for fantastical human enemies. When encountering fantastical human enemies, your characters move around the world and these human enemies initially appear like normal persons but when combat is triggered, there's a transitional outright  transformation  scene where they become.. more . These normal appearing people have a bright pillar of light engulf them and they become men wearing trashbags, heavily armored Samurai, giant sailors with pirate hats.. the list goes on.  Not every enemy is fantastical. Particularly, many
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Deathloop thoughts

First game I bought after getting a PS5 after a near two-year wait was Deathloop. I finished it in a couple of weeks back in June, and looking back, some thoughts on things that stood out to me. 1. Amazing use of limited assets The developers created a story using 4 maps in 4 time segments that you replay over and over again, in the style of Groundhog Day, peeling away the game like an onion.  The map geometry is reused, and the level design and scripting per map & time never really changes, with a lot of the peel-away constrained by content locking mechanisms like a code or puzzle of some sort, uniquely generated per player and run instance. Even with the repeated plays, if you're uncovering new story clues in a reasonable way, there's enough new map discovered, new critical story bit revealed and/or new arsenal the next time you revisit a zone that it doesn't feel boring. If you do run into a bug or fail to push the story fast enough, it does start to feel repetitive,
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Slay the Spire A20 - The Defect

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  My philosophical musing about the RNG and multiverse for rogue likes didn’t stop me from attempting more runs and burning more hours. Had an incredible run with The Defect, won’t try Asc20 with the remaining two. Game done!
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