Backloggin’ the Year – Paws’ Pilgrimage, April 2021

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Welcome to Backloggin’ the Year, a feature that discusses the challenges and excitement that comes with working through your backlog. Site owner Anna Marie Privitere looks at where she’s at in terms of her backlogging goals.

Between crafting and vaccinations kicking my butt, April was a slow month in terms of knocking out games.  It wasn’t, however, terribly slow in buying things.  Whoopsie…

The Streams – Yakuza: Like a Dragon / Bravely Default II

After a rollercoaster of emotions, Bravely Default II was in the bag.  Encouraged by numerous friends and literally everyone on the RPGCast, I dove into my first Yakuza series game with Like a Dragon.  It’s a ton of fun.  Little slow to start…there’s a lot of story the game immediately tees up, but it keeps good pacing by throwing in combat and mini-games along the way.  In Chapter 5, things really cracked wide open with a full party as well as the real estate mini-game and I started making progress (and yen!) hand over fist.  However, it’s going to be hard to resist streaming New Pokémon Snap now that it’s out…

 

New Games – Simon’s Cat: Story Time / Upcoming Title

Two non-stream games made it onto my plate this month.  Simon’s Cat is an online animation I’ve loved for years, and the new Apple Arcade title is a neat match 3 (okay, match 2+ in this case) with no microtransactions.  It’s been a blast; I love match 3, but get frustrated by games designed to make you spend money.  Now that I’ve played one that isn’t focused on filching your wallet, I’m not sure I’ll be able to go back to the standard model…and that’s probably a good thing.  I also picked up my second review code for the year, though you’ll need to wait just a little longer to discover what I’ve been playing.

The Backlog Bustin’ – Technobabylon / Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs (Royal Edition)


I didn’t grow up on point & click adventures, only really discovering the genre with Telltale’s Monkey Island entries.  Since then, I’ve been slowly catching up; in 2019, I blasted through all five Blackwell titles and Unavowed, all from Wadjet Eye Games.  A dear friend gifted me Technobabylon last year, which meant it was high time I finally got around to it.  It was fun playing it together with him, and any time my novice sleuthing skills were a little stumped, he was able to nudge me in the right direction, which was super helpful for someone who isn’t deeply familiar with the genre.  Also underway is Regalia, a mix of tactical RPG and town building, with relationship mechanics and oodles of conversation choices to encourage or discourage friendliness.  There’s also crafting and fishing, though the beginning is pretty darn slow due to large story dumps leading the way — which seems to be the theme for the month.

I also finally completed Good Pizza, Great Pizza, which I started in March and was frustrated to discover there’s only a fraction of the available story out on Switch.

The 5-Hour Rule – Nothing!

It turns out I made good choices this month, as I didn’t bail on any games.  Hurray!

Oh No, My Fingers Slipped

One thing I wasn’t good about this month was resisting the siren’s call of sales.  I picked up Grand Guilds, Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack, Fairune Collection, To the Moon, fault – milestone one, A Magical High School Girl, and Spaceland, all heavily discounted without even having to break into my Switch’s gold coin haul.  Also, I couldn’t resist grabbing New Pokémon Snap.

In May, I want to focus on reducing the size of my physical game pile, which currently has about 20 games I either want to play for the first time or replay before they get sold off.  I’ve pulled them all together in a pile in the living room and they now stare at me…patiently waiting…

 

THE FINAL TALLY

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Anna Marie Privitere

I like writing reviews and impressions. Co-Owner of RPGamer.

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