Axiom Verge 2 (Switch)

ARTHUR! King of the Britons!

The sequel to the game I played back in 2017 and 2018. A CEO of a company named Indira is traveling to an Antarctic station she acquired in a buyout of a Katherine Hammond with information about Indira's missing daughter. At the station she is transported through the Breach from the first game to a new world and has to find a way back. She finds something called Arms, people made into weapon to be used by Wielders that she uses to traverse the world. One of the Arms take control over her body and intends to get control of a weapon to destroy the portal (?) of a world that will destroy all worlds. Indira detonates a storm bomb and the game ends.

Quite surreal experience playing through this. You think there's gonna be like any metroidvania ever, but there is for example only one boss that you have to defeat... and it's a puzzle boss and is the final one. Everything else optional for some skill upgrades. Also, the connections between both game in the series are rather subtle. The final area seems to be the starting point for Axiom Verge 1 with similar music cues and there are mentions of Trace, but if it's the same one is harder to get. 8 hours, 20 deaths and 66 % of the items and 88 % of the map. 

Visually it's better in my opinion than the original, mostly due to other areas than inside caves and laboratories. Music, not so much. It's fine, but there isn't pumping techno, synth or electronic that grabbed your attention in the original game. Overall a fun little diversion. 

Star Trek: Voyager

The Voyage Home

Continued with the next series, Voyager. Saw the first seasons back when they showed it on the Swedish public channel. It was some kinda buzz about it. One of the channels announcer was a big trekki and showed of a trek manuscript he had and acted out some advertisements for certain episodes especially the one when they travel back to modern day after a run in with a ship from the future.  I gotta have watched something like 4-5 seasons before losing interest or SVT changed when they broadcasted the episodes, from prime time to something not appropriate for a school-going kid. Cause I get the impression that they showed all episodes by going through wikipedia. 

Story is that Voyager under Katherine Janeway is sent to the Badlands to find a Maquis ship that have disappeared where one of the Starfleet infiltrators are, Vulcan commander Tuvok. Turns out that the ship was taken by the Caretaker to the Delta Quadrat some 70 000 lightyears away from earth. Janeway gets the help of former Maquis Tom Paris that have been imprisoned after capture. Voyager gets caught as well and after the crews of both ships are united they noticed that each ship have a missing crew member. The Maquis have lost Be'leanna Torres, a half-human Klingon and Voyager have lost ensign Harry Kim. Both have been taken to a nearby planet where a race of telepathic aliens live under ground. Voyager learns that the Caretaker protects the Oocampa as they are called and he is dying and looking for a body to regenerate into. They meet a Telaxian named Neelix that will help them, but he tricks them to free his girlfriend, an Oocampa Kes that have been kidnapped by the Kazons, an alien race fighting and stealing their way through the Quadrant. After rescuing all the crew members they destroy the station the Caretaker had in order to stop the Kazons using it to destroy the Oocompas. In the process the Maquis ship is destroyed and the crews have to merge in order to get back to earth. So captain Chakotay that steered the Maquis ship becomes number one, Be'Leanna Torres chief of engineer. Due to casualties the medical crew died so they also have to rely on an emergency hologram for the duration of the trip.

It was a rather good start for the series. Interesting premise. After watching the whole series, maybe not holding up the whole way through as it looses a bit of urgency in their actions in later seasons. I mean, they stopped to participate in a F-Zero race in space. Also, I have clear memories of the first season  like the Beowulf episode, but after that I can hardly recall anything with exception of the time travel back to earth episode. Maybe the Seven-o-Nine episode, but I can't say say if I reached it or not as a kid. There are interesting episodes later on, like the Kurtwood Smith episode when he travels the quadrant changing history to get back his family. And you had Grima Wormtongue actor Brad Douriff as well, amazing episodes. Best ones are when Reginald Barclay appears in his work to get Voyager back... and can be due to Councillor Troi showing up making fun references to the Next generation. One episode I don't like is the final episode. After some more time travelling shenanigans a Janeway from 36 year into the future travels back and shortens their travel from 26 to 7 years total. That's fine and seeing where people ended up in the future was interesting, but then they reach earth (and those futures are undone) and it just ends. No meeting between Tom Paris and his father, or Be'Leanna and her father or Barclay meeting the crew. At least one episode could be the readjustment after 7 years, like the Dominion wars, technological advancements... Tuvok meeting his family... everyone meeting their family. I want some emotional feelings alright after a 7 year long mission.

So the ending doesn't land, some good episodes, but in the end it was kinda bloated. Nice to finally see the ending. And seeing it after all other shows you get a much better understanding for races and politics between them. But they did too little between the hostilities between the two different crews. It died out after season one and then reemerged for one episode in the seventh season. And certain plot points just disappear, like the second Caretaker. Now it's only Enterprise, the animated series and Discovery left of the Netflix library. Would be nice with the classic Star Trek-movies as well. Funny also how Star Trek seems to have inspied Stargate SG-1 a great deal. SG-1 is basically The Next Generation, Atlantis is Deep Space Nine and Voyager is obviously Universe. Although Universe was bad.

Metroid Dread (Switch)

Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!

Latest Metroid game and the first for Switch. Surprised revealed in spring 2021 and released in October the same year it was the first new 2D Metroid game since Metroid Fusion back in 2002 meaning it was almost 20 years between them, and it's also the first game since Fusion that brings the story forward since the games in between have been stories set before Super Metroid... well, I don't know about Federation Force since I haven't played more than the intro stage. 

Story is that after Fusion the federation got a message with a video of an X parasite on a different planet. Thought of being extinct since the events in Fusion when Samus dropped a whole space station on SR388. So the federation sends in 7 specialised E.M.M.I robots specialised in extracting biological matter. But as usual they lose contact and Samus Aran has to be sent in to finish the job. Arriving she is attacked by a Chozo named Raven Beak that strands her in the middle of the planet and without her powers. So she has to search the planet to upgrade her weapons, avoid and then destroy the rouge E.M.M.I's and escape.

This games hard. Usually you get to the end game and can demolish any enemy and boss, but here I actually have to learn to fight the damn things. Closer to the Metroid Prime end bosses since those were hard as well. Or at least the first two, never finished 3. Also, the tricks you gotta do to get 100 % items is something I couldn't do on my own so I had to look it up and then train to get it. People have played too much of these games if the thought is "yeah, pretty obvious you gotta stand on this edge, shoot the door, shinespark up those two ramps and then get through the speed booster blocks in morph ball mode for a missile upgrade".

In the end it seems like Raven Beaks plan was forcing Samus to fight which would force the Metroid DNA in her to take over and with that allow him to clone the Metroids and use them as an army to conquer the Universe. Unfortunately for him the X destroyed most of his plans and when Samus finally get good enough there is a real battle to the death. I gotta have been killed around 10 times, but I got him. And then I was able to escape with only 5 seconds to spare before the whole planet blew up. There is different gallery images you can unlock depending on ending time, I got almost 15 hours first time. After beating the game once you get hard mode, and we will see if I ever beat it. I can probably cut down on the time by a wide margin just by not being compelled to paint the whole map since it doesn't actually matter, beyond a small OCD tendencies. 

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Castlevania Advance Collection) (Switch)

 

In the Vampire Hall of Fang, Yeah! 

There's not a vampire zanier than! 

Duckula!

Continued and finished the third and last game of the Advance games. And yet again I summarised it rather well last time. Same observations and the same problem that I start and let it go. Not 7 months like last time, but a week. It goes well until a certain point in the game where every monster is overwhelming in the new area until a couple of bosses later, the giant that takes the giant bat to be exactly. Then the games get easier and you rack up a lot of EXP and levels making the end easier. I could probably extend the game another 10 hours with getting all the souls or playing as Julius to get the Belmont-feel.

What did they do to enhance the game then? Used the same thing from Circle of the Moon and added a pop-up for all the souls, meaning every monster. And a beastiary, but like Harmony of Dissonance not that practical when there is one in game. Great to replay these games after 6 years.