This preorder news bugs me. This game is a definite buy for me, but locking something behind the digital deluxe purchase makes me want to camp out on Deku Deals until the deluxe is the normal regular edition price.

Absolutely. I watched a playthrough of 2 because it was too rare to find around 3’s announcement, so I thought I’d never get to play it.

Then, because I don’t engage too closely, I missed NEARLY EVERY connection to the previous games unless they hit me over the head with it. I sure love a breakdown video after I’m done playing!

I’ve never played 2, but I agree with slimerancher. Three is tops, then the first one, and XCX last. This isn’t a knock on XCX. It’s just the more they iterate on the formula, the better it gets. And every entry has a more wonderful story than the previous one except XCX in my opinion.

That said, the story of XCX is still great. It’s just not a step forward like XC2 (which I watched a full play through of in the lead up to 3’s release).

I’m interested, but more than likely I’ll read about y’all playing it before I remember to buy it.

It’s amazing how little I cared about the original storyline. When something comes up, my wife will ask a question and I try my best to answer, but most of the time, I give her an “it’s new to me!” response.

I like it, but in a lot of ways, there are parts I have no interest in playing. I like that grinding just isn’t a thing, but I can’t clamp down on my desire to complete everything.

I am nearing the end of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and I’m pretty unhappy with the amount of time I’m spending on fights as I walk through a single-path corridor. To fix this, I’ve set the difficulty to Easy. I think I’ll just leave it there for the rest of the game. It is so much nicer to be able to look around the screen during the game instead of frantically inputting commands.

Rockruff is my favorite, but I’m not into any of its evolutions. I remember getting Rockruff for the first time in that extra area in Sword and Shield. I was wandering around leveling it and a bunch of Pokémon from level one as a break from the main story. I was so upset when I beat the main story and suddenly everything everywhere was level sixty. I never played Sword and Shield again after that. Boo!

I bought it last night and left the Switch 2 controller where my youngest would see it before I left for work. I’m so excited to see what wildness he gets up to with his friends in this game!

More board games before I go out to see Spider-Man:

We had our framily over to celebrate a kiddo birthday and I got to play three games:

Magical Athlete is a simple roll and move around the track racing game except every wild-looking character has one special power. Those powers interact with each other in a rules-lawyer crunchy kind of way that makes your head hurt for a moment.

Trick to the Future is a trick-taking card game where you have these digital cards that you can alter with your fuel rods (that look like the lines on a digital display). In essence, you are editing your cards as you play them. Put with salt, it was top three game for the day by default.

Golden Goal was a quick two player injury time soccer simulation where you are moving players around and kicking and bending a soccer ball in the hopes you can roll high enough to score. It was about ten minutes of fun, but it was only $10, so I think it’ll earn its place in the games bag.

It’s the last weekend before teachers report back to school, so I’m trying to enjoy the end of FFVII R2.

I’ve been playing a lot of Dungeon Clawer on my phone. It’s a claw machine rogue-like where I feel like I’m just turning off my brain for a bit. Maybe it’s time for a new Picross to sharpen me up for school.

I’ve been playing a lot of boardgames at Boardgamearena.com: Formula D, Harmonies, Can’t Stop, and 7 Wonders. I prefer real-time matches, but the site also does play-by-email style games where you get an email when it is your turn.

I’m terrified of underwater stuff, but I’m happy they are adding more!

The “staggered” enemies reminds me of Octopath Traveller. Having an eight person party is a lot like the Octopath mobile game, too. But I do appreciate the pixel art.

I love Rhythm Heaven Groove, but it has come out at a frustrating time. Summer vacation is so relaxation filled already that playing doesn’t feel like a break to me. I think my goal will be a little play every week so it can be a “blow off steam” with a new song and level as I need it during the school year.

Kingdomino is a simple concept. You are building your kingdom one domino at a time. Instead of numbers, each domino half has a terrain on it. Some have crowns. Each terrain group is worth the number of crowns times the number of terrain tiles. If you have any board game cafes near you, it’s a great way to spend 20 minutes with a smile.

Working my way through FFVII Rebirth still, but made a special trip out to buy Rhythm Heaven Groove. It’s incredible to me that this series has been going for twenty years.

I’ve also got a lot of board games and a D&D session under my belt for this week. It’s been a busy time! I played Tapestry, Love Letter, Kingdomino, Carcassonne, and 7 Wonders.

I’m so deep into summer vacation that I forgot it was the weekend! I got some Father’s Day gaming in today! I played Clank Catacombs with my oldest. Due to some crazy bad luck, he was killed twenty minutes into the game, so we started over. In my heart, it’s like we got to play twice.

Later, I played an Unlock (escape room in a box) with my wife and youngest. It was a mini-adventure, so it was only supposed to last 40 minutes. We had some trouble at the very end, so it was a good family hour.

I also bought Fortune Mill, an incremental game by the maker of IdleOn (an idle MMORPG). It sucked up almost all of my Sunday for only eight dollars!

We ended up playing Dominion and Ark Nova. Dominion was a quick deck-building game. Ark Nova was zoo-building game that was a beast that took five hours of learning and playing. That said, I loved it. I hope to play it again soon before I forget the rules.

I’m on the FFVII Rebirth train; Gold Saucer on the rear view, I’m just puttering around looking for Zonai Towers. Eventually, this game will drive me to finish Tears of the Kingdom. The local public library has the switch 2 edition for check out, so might as well borrow the upgrade that way.

Enjoyed the Lord of the Rings Adventure Book game with my wife and my youngest. It’s a fairly simple, fun, cooperative game that plays through the Lord of the Rings experience one chapter at a time (with some compression).

I ran tween D&D again. We are still in the lesson learning part of the game, so yesterday’s lesson was how during a battle, your attention should be on the threats of the combat to your allies.

Finished another Picross E+ DLC. I’m avoiding buying another while I have so many games open right now, but nothing joyfully passes the time like a podcast and a Picross.

Tomorrow I’m driving far to a fellow teacher friend’s house to celebrate the start of summer. I’m bringing my favorite board game Fog of Love.

“New” beginning? Knowing MonolithSoft, it’s going to be overflowing with callbacks. I know I recognized some of those environments!

I thought that too! Mostly environmentally…. Still haven’t played Three Houses. Maybe it is time to watch a play through.

I got the feeling they were inside a Dyson sphere. It felt like the ground was curved toward the sun, you know?

Also, did anyone else get the feeling that the school building looks like the building at the beginning of Xenoblade Chronicles 3?