Week of 04 May 2025
“I cast a spell, your health is back to 100, get the f*ck up.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Tenchu Z
- Little Kitty, Big City
- Chants of Sennaar
- South Park: Snow Day!
It was down to the final 20 missions as I started this week in the Japanese version of Tenchu Z. I don’t feel like anything got more difficult on the march to 50 (x3), but they definitely got longer. The straight-forward assassination missions were lessened to make room for more “kill everyone in the stage” missions, though luckily no further tailing missions. The slaughter missions aren’t anymore difficult, and if anything are even easier to get the max rank in because you just have to kill so many enemies, but they obviously take longer. Unlike before, now I had the Drop skill so if anyone saw me or things went sideways I could quickly and safely dispatch of them in combat. The biggest hurdle on Sunday was of course the final mission, where you’re faced with not one but two bosses subsequently. Normally this is a daunting prospect, but with Drop I safely took them out with little issue. I even tried to kill the first boss on my initial/Easy run by cheesing and knocking them into a river behind the castle, but this took so much longer. Definitely recommend getting the kills you need for the score, then Drop-ing them. Make sure you have a good health pool, too! All-in-all, this was a nice game to go back to. I really do enjoy it; the having to play each stage in triplicate is tedious, but I still was having fun by the end.
Achievements unlocked: 31 (+10) | Completed
Sure, just sit there. Yup. Not like I’m in a hurry or anything, waiting for you to turn around so I can kill ya.
It was time to hit the leaving Game Pass list, and top of this batch was Little Kitty, Big City. I’d played the game previously for my Blaze series, so I knew it was one I was going to get to when it left the library. It’s SO CUTE! You play as… well, a kitty that falls from its high-rise apartment and must make its way back up. You interact with the various animals about, make new friends, and generally be an adorable little kitty causing mayhem around town. Completion-wise, it’s very easy and there’s no missable achievements, and once you finish the game you get all your collectibles marked on the map to help with clean-up. A fun little time and short, so just get out there and be a little weirdo.
Achievements unlocked: 39 (+39) | Completed
Being a cat is truly so difficult.
Next up was another game leaving the Game Pass library and one I’d Blaze’d in: Chants of Sennaar. This is a fantastic game! The best puzzle games don’t hold your hand, or brutally punish you for not knowing what to do, while also making you feel like a genius when you finally solve it. The last game I played that handled that balance the best was Portal 2, so it’s in rarified air. In this one, you wake up as a being in a world you literally don’t understand and have to discern your way through multiple factions and their languages. It’s clearly a take on the Tower of Babel myth, and all these people probably angered their god. But, as the uniting force, you have to go around talking to people, reading signs, looking over murals, and browsing books to try and piece together phrases of each group. It starts out easy enough, where the serfs and devotees use symbols in a simplistic logographic writing system; for example, there’s a symbol that means “god”, “man”, and “garden”, and putting two of the same symbol in sequence means it’s plural. But then you get to the second level, the Warriors, and they not only have different ways to refer to some nouns you’ve encountered and obviously a new language all together, but now they have symbols for abstract concepts and modifiers to account for plurals. By the end of the game, you’re even having to figure out another mathematical system in another language! It’s all very well-done, and you’re never stuck as long as you’re paying attention. And if you decide to rob yourself of the mental exercise, a guide would have you skimming through the game very quickly.
Achievements unlocked: 25 (+25) | Completed
…Okay, why does this look like urine?
Next up, I started my “game from 2024 I’m giving a chance” for May: South Park: Snow Day! A direct sequel to the other two modern South Park games, you’d hope it’s as good as them. Sadly, that’s not the case. Unlike the turn-based RPGs of the previous games, now this is an action game where your New Kid heads into different levels to face enemies (mostly by mashing the X-button) and that’s… kinda it. The humor and writing are on-point, and while I prefer the typical animation of the show the 3D style they use here works well enough. But every level is the same: it’s a snowy corridor through a part of the eponymous town, facing kids dressed as elves or wizards, and repeat. It’s sadly the worst thing a game can be: kinda boring and tedious. If they’d maybe tossed in some of the many creatures or people from the series, other locations/terrain, or even more than a handful of weapons and skills, maybe that would help carry the game much further. Considering the short length and limited scope, it almost feels incomplete. Eh, it’s not terrible, so I guess there’s that? Shame.
Achievements unlocked: 21 (+21) | Completion: 66%
Rarest Achievement:
The Escher of Necromancy in South Park: Snow Day! [3.44]
Most Common Achievement:
That's the spirit in Chants of Sennaar [1.00]
