While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
This week I took a break from Bloodstained to play and take notes for a TBT review, which will be for the Game Boy versions of Adventure Island I and II. And I have to say, I’ve been enjoying these games purely for their simplicity. Simple fun hardly ever requires any significant time commitment or any other kind of investment. You can just pick them up and play. I imply this in my upcoming review for the Game Boy’s Super Mario Land 1 and 2, where there’s plain fun from start to finish through its simple gameplay. And I also love how easy it is to just turn my brain off and enjoy with these kinds of titles.
I feel I’ve been needing that last bit, that small break or release from real life that I seek in gaming or reading. Yet lately, I’ve been finding it more difficult to obtain that release in media that demands a commitment. Bloodstained demanded a commitment with its Shard and Alchemy systems, along with my unreasonable need to earn boss medals. And so frustration and unwillingness to play would creep in. No such problem with these four Game Boy titles.
As for these handheld versions of Adventure Island, I’m enjoying my playthroughs, as I take my notes, screenshots, and consider the highs and lows I wish to address. I’m also enjoying the silliness of the titles, in that we play as a dude supposedly stranded on this primitive island, yet there are skateboards and such that impossibly hatch from these eggs scattered about. And, in the second title, alien abductions are just a thing. I find myself missing that level of silliness, an element of gaming that feels more forced in modern titles. Here, the silliness is natural and considerably par for the course with Game Boy titles of the time. I think I miss that normalized, unquestioned silliness more than I realize. – Drew D.
Recently I’ve been trying to power through the last bit of Like a Dragon: Ishin!. I didn’t do as much side stuff as I hoped to and originally I planned on doing a little more side stuff. I like to at least indulge in some sidequests and minigames, have a little fun and not only play through the story. But last week I unexpectedly ended up with two more games for the backlog, Star Ocean: The Divine Force and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I’ve wanted both of those for a while, but they just weren’t games I had prioritized getting myself. I’m looking forward to jumping into them eventually. Anyways, because now I have even more games on hand already and Ishin has been out for a little while now, I figured it’s time to simply get through the last chunk of story and finish it. I was on Chapter 8 before this past week and I’m now at the beginning of Chapter 13, so I’ve only got two more to go counting 13. I essentially just got past everything hitting the fan and I’ve probably only got a few more important story fights, or overall battle events, left.
In addition to trying to finish up Ishin, I’ve also started Harvestella, I started it before I ended up with two more games for my backlog. Harvestella though has been sitting in my backlog since it arrived in January. After that mahjong tournament the other week, I was back in a bit of a slump and feeling like something new to play, so I finally started it. I’ve made a good bit of progress so far. I started completely over since it’s been some time since I played the demo. I really enjoy the more chill atmosphere with the small town and having my farm to earn funds for adventuring. I’m currently at the beginning of Chapter 3. I went to the spring village, Nemea, to check out somewhere new and I got an additional party member. But before going straight to another seaslight, I figured I better do a bit of grinding, monsters have started sapping my HP pretty quickly. It’s weird grinding in Harvestella, because you don’t actually level up until you sleep and go to the next game day. I’m now level 14 and I just bought a handful of cooking recipes from the general store. I’m working on grinding some more still and doing various sidequests. – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
