March 2022 Channel Update – No Easts Allowed

Hi all,

Hope your March has been going great!

This month has been more a breather compared February, but still full of toooons of really interesting games coming out. I only wish there were enough hours in a day to check them all out…!!

TL;DR

• Finished: Hollow Knight
• Ongoing: Horizon Forbidden West, Weird West
• Upcoming: after Horizon finishes, a poll?

Games Finished Since Last Update

Hollow Knight (62 parts): Finally wrapped up this behemoth of a game! I don’t think games with a million bosses is normally my thing, but Hollow Knight made it all work with the exploration and cryptic lore drip-feed. Aside from the ending boss rush bits I had a really great time with this one. Patreon vote winners have (unsurprisingly, I suppose!) always been fantastic experiences – thanks again to everyone who voted for this! Now I also join the Silksong waiting room...

I also took a first look at:

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy of Origin: Just like its chaotic reveal trailer, it’s fun, but in a B movie, don’t-take-it-seriously sorta way.  To me the gameplay is the usual FF hack-n-slash, but I’ve seen some say it’s “Soulslike” – I don’t really know what this means lol – so it seems like it’s decent enough to push the buttons for some people.

Progress on Current Stuff

Horizon Forbidden West: I think I’m roughly 30-40% through at the moment. I found a good rhythm with daily videos, although I’d still really like to push it up a bit more like I mentioned last update… it’s a work in progress!

Weird West: A top-down indie immersive sim set in the Wild West but with occult stuff by the co-creators of Prey/Dishonored. Aside from the non-first-person POV, it feels very immersive simmy with the different ways to solve a problem, the world responding to your actions, etc.

TBH I’m a little hesitant about this one as a full series b/c it looks like it’s fairly lengthy and has limited general appeal, but I’m enjoying it a ton and once in a while I do just wanna play something without thinking about opportunity cost blahblahblah. Hope you enjoy it as well!

Upcoming Stuff

The two West games’ll be here for a while, but I don’t envision it being all that there’ll be: soon I hope to check out TUNIC which came out earlier this month and got favourable reviews.

Looking further ahead into the year, I don’t see any longer, 40+ hour games coming out (fill me in if you think I’m overlooking anything), so after Horizon I’m thinking it would be a great time to get back to some polls, older classics, all that good stuff. (e.g. I wanna get back to Mass Effect Andromeda to complete the set, and I’m also about to give up on waiting for Dragon Age remasters and just jump in, all those unplayed Resident Evils, OMORI………...)

So many games, so little time… A positive interpretation is that we’re probably living in some kind of golden age of gaming with how accessible and competitive games are for our attention 🍷

Feel free to let me know any comments/thoughts you have! Take care, and see you next month!

Welonz