September has been a pretty good month for me, once we got past the stupid heat of the first half. We’ve had days where we were able to keep the doors and windows open for a few hours in the mornings and evenings and having some fresh air has been lovely. October should be better. I love October and November.
Gaming wise, I kept to my plan of choosing a selection of games and sticking with them. I dabbled a bit outside of this group, mostly to earn Microsoft Rewards Points, but overall here’re the games I played in September:
- Starfield
- The Witcher 3
- Final Fantasy XVI
- Persona 4 Golden
The first two weeks of September were pretty much 100% devoted to Starfield which I almost instantly fell in love with. I racked up 25 hours in the first week (thanks in large part to the long Labor Day weekend) which, for me, is a huge number of hours to spend gaming in a single week. About mid-month it became clear that this was a game that I was going to stick with for the long term, so I started mixing in the other 3 titles.
Persona 4 Golden was in second place, I reckon. I don’t actually track my play time but I had a couple of weekend days that were 100% Persona so I assume it comes in second after Starfield. I think a Persona game finally got its hooks into me, though I have to admit I find the actual dungeon diving pretty dull (well, aside from discovering the truly bizarre enemies we have to fight). It’s the social stuff and story and I’m invested in.
The Witcher 3 continues to be a slow and enjoyable burn. I play it almost like it’s an MMO. There’s something about it that just feels comfy to me, even though old Geralt is slicing off heads and cutting foes in half. A lot of times when I play I just run around exploring. “Oh, I’ve never been to that section of the map….let’s run over there.” Over the years the devs have added a LOT of fast travel markers but I just trot past them. Heck I don’t even call Roach. I just love to stroll around killing monsters and bandits.
Final Fantasy XVI is in rotation but I still am not enjoying it that much. I’m not sure why I’m forcing myself to finish it. I guess because I bought it at full price. I keep thinking I should do a post about the things that bother me about it but then I think maybe there’s enough negativity on the Internet. Perhaps someday when I’m feeling cranky.
Watching:
We’ve become big fans of Apple TV+ lately. Three of our shows this month have been on Apple TV+
Invasion season 2 is still airing. We’re liking it though we’re a little sad about how Aneesha’s character is written. She was so fierce in Season 1 and now she mostly yells “LUUUKKKEE” to her kid. And I don’t like her kid at all. But all the other threads keep us tuning in.
Foundation season 2 is over and I think we’ll do a 2nd watch; this is a dense show that rewards re-watching. Or at least season 1 did. And we’ll watch anything with Jared Harris in it.
The Changling is a horror show that we’re still in the middle of. It has this way of being a little dull for like half the episode and then totally hooking me in the 2nd half, forcing me to come back for more.
From other services, we’ve been watching Star Trek: The Lower Decks which we just love. It’s on Paramount+
We’ve pretty much lost interest in the Disney+ shows, particularly since we’ll be cancelling soon due to the stupidly large price hike. But even before that happened we both just drifted away from Ahsoka and I can’t get too excited about any of the Marvel stuff anymore either. That’s OK… looking forward to having that $$ in my pocket instead of Disney’s.
I’ve also been solo watching some anime: The Faraway Paladin & Ascendency of a Bookworm. Neither was mind blowing but both were enjoyable with a minimum amount of screaming. I bounce off a lot of anime because of the constant screaming. Also worth noting that I know nothing about anime. I’ve been told all the screaming is a hallmark of ‘shonen’ but I dunno how to tell if something is shonen or not before I start watching. I need an anime sensei. 🙂
Reading:
Finished The Last Wish & started Sword of Destiny; a nice pairing with my time roaming around in The Witcher 3. 🙂
And that’s September done. October should be great. The Quest 3 comes out and it just so happens (it was legit a coincidence) that I have a week’s vacation booked starting the Monday after launch. Also looking forward to Honkai Star Rail hitting the Playstation. Plus, y’know, spooky stuff all month! Woohoo!
The screaming and the parts where the animation goes from quasi-realistic to Loony Tunes and back in a second or two are the parts I don’t like but I’m getting used to the latter. I guess I don’t need to recommend Carole and Tuesday again but I will anyway. No screaming in that although there are some of those face-distorting double-takes. Not many, though. When that finished I moved on to Beastars which is super-weird and quite disorienting. I’m loving it so far but I have no idea where it’s going. Both of them are on Netflix but I imagine also on Crunchyroll, which seems to have all anime ever.
Is that a new series of Lower Decks, btw? Oh, yes, I see it is. I guess I’ll wait til all the episodes are on Paramount+ then watch them in the free week Netflix keeps pushing at me. Thanks for the tip!
Shame you haven’t enjoyed Ashoka; I’ve found it to perhaps be the best SW content in a fair while — but then that’s speaking as someone who did watch Rebels. Friend convinced me to do so ahead of Ashoka and I’m glad of it, given it is basically a Season 5 to that show.
In contrast, I haven’t yet managed to quite get into Invasion yet (started Season 1 a while ago, but watching only intermittently). Glad to hear Lower Decks is back though! We get that on Prime in NZ, so will start catching up there shortly. The cross-over ep with SNW was pretty good IMO. 🙂
We maybe didn’t give Ashoka a super fail chance. I think we watched 2 or 3 episodes. And that was about when the huge price jump ($13/month to $25/month for us) was announced so I was like “Screw you, Disney” and that kind of counter-motivated me about giving it more time.
I remember Ashoka as this scappy pretty good natured youngster and now she’s this brooding serious adult. And we get the young side kick who is told “Don’t take that out of here” and she takes that thing out of there and it gets stolen and I’m kind of gotten to an age where “rebellious youth” irritates me. LOL Did I mention I had to buy a cane recently? So now I have something to wave around at those darned kids!
Wow that is an astronomical price increase. If they do that in NZ will also be dropping it. Ashoka picked up a lot around EP 4 to be fair, but there was enough in it as carryover from Rebels that I enjoyed even the earlier EPs. Last one today! \o/
I don’t recall hearing about the cane either, but hah. Transformation nearing completion! Be awl, ‘Gosh darn kids, git off me lawn’ in no time.
As for Sabine (the ‘sidekick’), yep… Their relationship has definitely been a bit fraught, so I wasn’t entirely surprised. Didn’t stop me from facepalming regardless though. xD
Baldur’s Gate 3 has been all consuming in my household. It’s starting to come close to passing Skyrim as my most favorite game bar. The decision tree behind this game must be immense, I’d love to see it on paper (as well as one giant map), it’s scratching all the itches in the best possible way. And I am kind of embarrased to admit, I also love the adult content. Thank goodness I don’t have to police children any more! But Glo and I have started two or three co-op campaigns, and probably at least that many each as solo campaigns. The co-op is a *little* clunky, but now that we have the hang of it, not quite as annoying. The story though, and how many different ways the story can change and affect the future – it’s unparalleled. If you haven’t already, highly recommend putting this on your list.
It is definitely on my list… I’m just trying to finish something else before I dive in because I keep hearing how all-consuming it is! 🙂