Currently playing Shiren the Wanderer 4 - The Eye of God and the Devil’s Navel on my phone through the PSP emulator. A fantastic step up for the series from playing and beating the DS version this past summer. I play for the 15 min I’m on the bus in the morning, it’s the perfect game to get my juices flowing early morning. Improved graphics, better items and upgrades and additional ways to improve your runs with the ability to tag weapons and shields so you don’t lose them (and their upgrades) completely between runs.

In parallel with Shiren 4 I’m also playing the newest Shiren release Serpentcoil Island on my laptop. The contrast betwern the two is pretty stark. I’ve been playing Shiren off and on for twenty year and this game is by far the most difficult iteration of Shiren I’ve played. For the first two hours I couldn’t get past the damned fifth floor, just yesterday I finally made it to floor ten and got pummeled again. I appreciate the difficulty, but damn the game is kicking my ass. I also noticed there seems to be less upgrades and ways to create advantages between runs like Shiren 4, but maybe that changes as you progress through the game. The graphics are also in 3D for the first time since Shiren 3 on the Wii, initially I wasn’t a fan (Shiren just feels right as a pixel-art game) but after a few playthroughs I’m actually grown to like them. They can be a little rough and lacking detail at times, but they are charming.

I found House of Necrosis on Rock Paper Shotgun, which is basically if the Mysery Dungeon games and Resident Evil had a baby. I’ve done a few quick plays to level 4 and promptly got my ass beat by the boss everytime. This game is even harder than Serpentcoil Island which is saying a lot. Love the PS1 style graphics and menus though, and it’s a fun game thematically for this time of year.

I did try and start a playthrough of Resident Evil, but am stuck fighting and dying repeatedly on that first damn zombie dog, so I’ve kind of stalled out on it. The atmosphere still holds up and goddamn the live action cut scenes are so laughably cringe, I forgot they had done them live action in the first game, the actors look like cosplayer of the characters they’re trying to play in game and they act worse than porn actors lol.

Lastly I’m playing the shit out of New Star GP. I needed a good indy-style racing game and it efinitely delivers. I was initially turned off by the simplistic and stylized cartoon-y graphics, but they’ve grown on me over the course of playing thes past few weeks. I had to switch from normal to hard though because I was just wrecking the competition on normal, unfortunately you have to create an entirely new save to do so, so I’m having to replay the GPs I’ve already done on normal to get back to where I was. I dig that your rivals become more aggressive towards you on the track as your relationship to them changes, I’ve had a few assholes run me off the track as I’m trying to pass them. You also manage your racing team members which add perks to help you, which I found annoying at first, but came to like it as time went on (it’s especially necessary to manage your team and upgrade your car in hard mode). Great game, lot of fun and excellent in quick sessions.