Finished AI: The Somnium Files ! Things became really weird for a bit, but I liked the ending.

While I have shared my feelings previously, but some final thoughts:

Even though there are multiple routes, you can jump straight to the diverging point, and other than playing that “somnium” again and selecting the other route, you don’t have to replay anything else, which was a big plus for me.

And for someone new to the genre, these routes aren’t optional or side-content, you only get the full picture after playing all the routes, which then opens the “true” route.

Visuals are really good. Someone whose experience of VN / adventure games is limited to Phoenix Wright and Hatoful Boyfriend, this game looks absolutely gorgeous.

Performance is fine for most of the game, but near the end, I started noticing that there was sometimes a delay when showing a video etc. (when talking with people, if they refer to something that happened before, it plays a small clip, kinda like picture in picture mode as a quick reminder). It used to be instant in the start, but near the end, it would often take couple of seconds. Not a major issue, but noticeable. Other than that, don’t recall any other performance issues.

Finally, the characters and the story was interesting, and while the overall story and character feels very sombre, there is lots of whimsy and fun in it too. I am looking forward to playing next games in the series.

On PlayStation side, I am still focusing only on Final Fantasy XIV.

Still playing the trial, and have reached level 50. Though main quests are around level 30 and they sync my level to that, so can’t use my OP level 50 powers. So I have stopped doing all the side quests, if I ever try another class, can use those to level them up quickly. Still the “blue” ones, which are used to introduce / open a new feature, but ignoring all the other side stuff.

As for the main quests, while the story isn’t bad, the quests themselves are very fetch quest heavy, and while I am still enjoying the game, I can understand why some people call the base game to be slog, they also say the expansions are some of the best Final Fantasy stories ever, so hopefully things will improve for better.

As I am still on free trial, hoping for a sale to buy the game. Their last sale ended just before I started the game, so don’t think it will go on sale again before my free trial is up, may just have to buy the game at full price…

For my next game on Switch, I have been wanting to play some cozy game, took a look at a few farming games, short listed some of them, but wasn’t sure about what to start. So I went back to Tiny Lands, it’s a “spot the differences” game, with low-poly 3D dioramas. Very chill and cozy, no time limit, no counter of any kind, just light music with sound effects (like birds sound, or tree cutting sound) based on the diorama.

I started this game in 2021, and would play it for 10-15 mins after every 3-4 months when I finish whatever else I was playing, so out of roughly 100 levels (10 worlds, each with 10 levels) I had done only about 25 or so. Now I am doing the rest and plan to finish it.

I have already cleared the 2nd and 3rd world, and have just started the 4th one.

I also got couple of indie games on sale, but will start them after Tiny Lands.

What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?