The Daily Backlog 61

Sometimes a "definitive" review is not enough, and Xenon Valkyrie+ solidifies that thought for me!

The Fluid Review

Good afternoon fellow backloggers! I’m back with another Tuesday edition of The Daily Backlog, where I pretend that it’s further into the week and then am sorely disappointed when I wake up the next day and it’s only Wednesday! But at least I can look forward to writing another edition of this definitive source of all things backloggerish (relative to my backlog)!

So, for the last few days, I’ve been thinking a whole bunch about how I cover games both for The Backlog Odyssey and The Daily Backlog and I gotta say, I kinda like where we’re at right now. In the past I would play a game and then once I considered it complete or I had my fill, I’d try to squeeze out a review. You know, purge all my thoughts and experiences I had while playing it while relating to all of you my impressions. That would include the things I liked, the things I disliked and some anecdotes here and there. It was fun, and I’d definitely like to do more of that for the blog.

But I always had an issue with writing reviews. For one, they can be a lot of work. And if a game is significantly long, or complex in one manner or another it was a challenge to do the game justice. I would usually try to boil the review down to what I thought were the most important parts. The things that stood out to me as being significant and defining, whether that was good or bad. But there was so much more I wanted to talk about, or even things that I’ve forgotten since beginning the game. Sure, I could take notes, but sometimes those things are lost in translation and were only meaningful at the time. What of my initial impression when I first picked up the game? Or how about the moment a good game becomes great, or even better when a bad game became a true hidden gem?

And that’s why I love doing the Daily Backlog. I get to write down my thoughts on the games I’m playing as I’m playing them instead of trying to remember how I felt 30 hours ago. It may not be as concise as a full review, but I feel it gives a much wider and more honest overview of what a game has to offer and what you can look forward to if you were to play it. Now I just need to find a way to consolidate all this so it’s easier to find my thoughts on specific games. But I think that’ll be for another time. For now, you’ll just need to follow along with me on my journey!!

Secrets, Secrets Everywhere!

Anyways, the whole reason I was thinking about and then writing about all of these shenanigans is because I think I’ve hit a turning point with Xenon Valkyrie+! And I’m so glad that my initial impressions aren’t my “end all and be all opinion” of the game! No, after sinking a few more hours into Xenon, I can confidently say it has its hooks in me. I’m addicted and I can’t stop playing it! It’s actually stealing precious Devil May Cry 5 time away from me! And I’m not at all sad about that.

And what really did it for me was the discovery that there is so much more to this game. In my initial impressions post, I mentioned that Xenon Valkyrie+ reminded me a whole bunch of Spelunky, but that it was missing things here and there. Little did I know though, that like Spelunky, Xenon had many little secrets to uncover. You just needed to either stumble upon them or learn of them through word of mouth (a.k.a. Google). And once I came across my first secret area, I knew this game was much more than it seemed. I mean, one of those secret areas was a full fledged, horizontally scrolling, shoot em up!! And I only discovered it because I was curious about a hole in the ceiling of one of the stages. That and I finally decided to give the other playable characters a try.

The only reason I didn’t find them before was because the default character is unable to access these stages!! To think I would have missed a huge portion of this game if I didn’t decide to experiment with the options Diabolical Mind obviously wanted me to try. But I’m definitely glad I did. And now I’m determined to go through this game with a fine toothed comb and try to uncover some of the other things I may have missed.

This makes me very excited and I can’t wait to see what else Xenon Valkyrie+ has to offer. What new bosses I’ll discover and the fun new weapons I’ll be able to find. I mean, the game still suffers from some of the issues I had a problem with initially, but I think I can definitely look past them because now a whole new world has opened up to me! And definitely look forward to more updates as I stumble my way through this wonderful little gem!

F.Y.I. This is Post 61

Well my friends, that’ll do it for today! I love it when a game surprises me and I think Xenon Valkyrie will go down as one of my favorites this year. I’m really excited to see how it and all the other games we’ve played so far this year stack up against each other! And speaking of stacking (I don’t know how that relates) I of course have been playing a bunch more Devil May Cry 5 and I think I’m starting to figure out where it stands versus its predecessors.

Until tomorrow, have a great rest of your Tuesday!

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Currently Playing

Mario + Rabbids (Switch) - The Trio

Devil May Cry 5 (PlayStation 4) - Me

Xenon Valkyrie+ (PlayStation 4) - Me

Graveyard Keeper (Steam) - The Wife

Total Backlogged Games: 733 … deaths before reaching the final boss in Xenon!

Total Completed Games: 15 …That’s right I consider it complete!

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And you can keep tabs on my backlog by checking out the Backlog Odyssey Backloggery game list!

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