November 2025 Heavy Rain completion 55/56 / Star Ocean 2 R 100% complete 51/51

 All I had left to do in Heavy Rain was:

1. Perfect ending: heroine, helpless, innocent left; ethan arrested/freed;Madison saves the day ending
2. happy birthday: first chapter do optimal day
3. kamikaze: perfect car drive?
4. pride kept: take off no clothing only a button?
5. im not afraid: twins no mistakes QTE
6. best friends: good day w/ shaun, 2 rides, buy candy, leave

I completed all of these except for I'm not Afraid (might do it next year).

16th October - Happy Birthday and Best Friends

Gods bless the guides people write.

With the help of a guide I easily cleared both of these, though really they just remind you exactly what to do. I don't think I ever did the technical drawing as Ethan before for example.

Also for the second one I remember not being able to do the boomerang game properly so completely evaded doing that.

18th October - Pride Kept and All Endings

Madison was going to be the big damn hero in this second full playthrough. I had gotten the first 50 achievements in my first playthrough of Heavy Rain way back in October 2023 in abotu 20 hours; playing through once then reloading to get different endings.

Madison went to the clerb and only opened one button before lamping the seedy nightclub boss. Achievement get.

Madison escaped the killers house, Norman was dead in the junkyard, Scott was wandering the streets and Ethan was in jail - Helpless ending unlocked. Then I reloaded.

With Ethan in jail and Madison single/unforgiven, she would save the day by finding Shaun all by herself. Thus Madison unlocked the Heroine ending and Ethan got the Innocent ending.

20th October - Kamikaze

On the night of the 19th / morning of the 20th I booted up Heavy Rain and went straight in and completed this after two attempts. Had to go through the whole garage sequence twice. I was following a guide of course so just paused every time I completed a Quick Time Event and checked what was next. In retrospect some of them seem obvious now but whatever.

I was considering loading up the Twins chapter but fuck it. Maybe next year or some other time.

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I loaded up Star Ocean 2 R instead. I had cleared most of the achievements in 2023 when I first got it and at the start of this year I got all the Rena-related ones. All that was left was Cooking Master/Beat Yarma and the achievement for 100% completion tied to that.

I blitzed through on a Claude playthrough on Universe difficulty. I briefly tried Chaos but it was insane. Some other time. I got as far as Energy Nede easily enough then got tired of it. R is good but it's too polished. Being able to skip every dialogue and even most battles now just makes me miss the PSX version.

So I loaded up an old completed file where all my characters were level 255 and happened to be right at Fun City - I must have been trying to do this before.

25th October Five-Star Chef/Master of the Star Ocean

I had briefly attempted the Cooking Master once or twice before in the remake but did not understand it at all.

I watched a bit of a video of someone beating all the contestants. That helped me figure out what was necessary to do. You just gotta press X or click the left mouse button right before the white circle closes in on the dish you are about to make.

It took me a few attempts but I eventually got into the rhythm of it. Some of the contestants kicked my ass but then after replaying some of them I noted they would randomly fuck up and get KO'd. So I either beat all of them legit by points or by Pressure KO, either from me or by their own hand. I'd take anything.

Yarma himself was tough, besting me the first time but I got him on the second attempt. This unlocked the achivement and the final 100% achievement together. All of this took maybe an hour or so.

I could go back and keep playing my Claude Universe mode playthrough but eh. Something that's bothered me for a long time was not beating Universe on the PSX after clearing it normally and on Galaxy almost all the way. I think IIRC I got as far as Indalecio Limiter OFF on Galaxy (yep). I think I still have that save file on a memory card so might need to do that somehow then do Universe Mode on PSX. I think I just miss the old version.

October 2025 Pathfinder:Kingmaker in Sep 2025

 I got three more achievements in this run in September; I stopped playing around HATEOT. I'd seen enough.

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Evil Is My Name - Make three special 'Evil' story choices.

Comrades-in-Arms - Succeed in all available companion quests and win the loyalty of your comrades.

Prosperous Kingdom - Raise all kingdom stats to the 10th rank.

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Evil is my name was easy enough as I was playing a Chaotic Evil character. It's still kind of uncomfortable picking the dick options in this game. I'd definitely play as an evil character again and be a dick if I wasn't trying to max out companion loyalty too.

Max comrade loyalty was not too bad either; just made sure to do every companion quest as they came up. Juggling all these things with making the perfect kingdom was a little tough. No need to do the full DLC companion questline so it finally popped after completing all the OG companion quests.

Finally, Prosperous Kingdom was not too bad once I knew what to do - complete all Problems and don't be too focussed on Opportunities. I reloaded a few disaster result Problems. Not too many, but they were punishing. I almost always had a few Crisis Points for every Problem but not always.

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I could probably have grinded out the 100 random encounters one but I found myself tiring of Kingmaker. Might give Wrath of the Righteous a go next year.

September 2025 - Time Stories middle 3 Expedition/Mask/Lumen

 An update on the T.I.M.E Stories Campaign and my attempt to finish all 9 of the original 'White Cycle'.

Expedition Endurance

We did this 4th though I think it was the 5th expansion. Oh well.

I was the Dog; I can't remember the exact composition of the party after that.

We spent a blue and a pink token (latter I think it was for the final boss fight)

We got 40 points so chose a pink and blue token to replace those lost.

Under The Mask

We all changed vessels a lot in this one. I was one of the guards at the start. Royce was the priestess with the re-roll; Dave was the guy who could read and various others as was Billy; they changed a lot.

More fun than I remember; we got 51 points and a green and blue token.

Lumen Fidei

We played this one briefly then stopped as we were out of time;

We used a blue token in one of the initial runs.

The fight with the crusaders is ridiculous (if you don't have beer or whatever to pay them off).

TBC.

August 2025 - DayZ again (100% complete 5th October 2025)

 I usually play a load of DayZ around July/August these last few years. 

Finally drove a car!

Or three!

And a boat!

Did not manage to get the 'kill a survivor at 300 metres' achievement yet, but had a good attempt at it on 31st of August 2025; shot my friend at 300+ with a Sporter but too weak; they died of blood loss probably but it say my best shot of a survivor was over 300 metres (thanks Rangefinder).

July 2025 - Outer Worlds 100% completion (3 more playthroughs)

Outer Worlds 2 is coming out soon and I wanted to play OW1 again so I did. I also picked up the DLCs on sale at some point so could finally get the 20+ achievements from them too. These are 3 more playthroughs after my initial playthrough in 2024.

Playthrough #1 (Hard)

I stumbled across a comment somewhere containing a link to a video of a streamer completing OW1 in like 30 minutes so I copied what he did and finished it in around 4 hours on hard difficulty in early June. The key is to shoot the main npc quest givers in the head, nullifying entire arcs of the story and moving you forward to the next one.

I just had Parvati as my companion and had to heal a lot but managed it fine. I didn't even have to shoot a single shot in the final area. 

Playthrough #2 (Supernova)

A week later in mid-June I booted the game up again on Supernova difficulty. I died a lot but took my time and grinded here and there and it was not too difficult. Lots of dying but the limited saves attached to this difficulty was not too hard to manipulate.

Playthrough #3 (Normal/DLCs)

After completing it on Supernova, I played it again the next day on Normal difficulty. So much easier. I also skipped a lot of the missions by assassinating the major NPCs but also had to stop and grind experience as I planned to do both of the DLCs.

The Gorgon DLC was decent, a bit too dark and lonely for my liking. It needed a few more interesting people to talk to. 

The Eridanos DLC was better, I enjoyed the whole murder investigation angle. 

Afterward all I had left to do was the 50 stealth kills achievement. I got that in a few minutes after re-speccing as a stealth sniper. That was actually a lot of fun, almost wished I had done it earlier. I can always get the enhanced edition if I want to get all the achievements again.

June 2025 A Link to the Past (second time in 20~ years)

There was a lot of this.

 I had played this through at least once before on the Game Boy Advance back in the mid 2000's. It was a great experience and a game I wanted to play again sometime. Around 20 years later I finally sat down and played it again, this time on an emulator with an Xbox controller. Big change from a GBA.

The Dark World. The music slaps

I cleared it on the 14th of June 2025. It took about 2 sessions to finish - the first one on the 2nd of June I started it and got all the way to the Master Sword/Dark World, the second one I cleared all the Temples and beat the game.

Definitely an emulator. Save states are so handy

Not much to say, I've been enjoying playing emulators here and there over the last few months.

Bombos is very handy.

I started following a guide at various points, all of them show how to cut corners and skip optional stuff like maps and compasses in dungeons so I was all over that. I usually skip them on replays of Ocarina of Time now for example.

This fucking secret. Anything for a few fairies.

There was also extensive tips on how to find all the heart containers and such but you get like 10 full ones from playing the game normally so I just picked up whatever I could as I went along and had 17 by the end.

Yes!

Still a great game I'd recommend to anyone. Was a bit fiddly with an Xbox stick for movement but I eventually got better at it, just in time to beat Ganon et al.

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I went back to playing Outer Worlds [1] again after this. I cleared it recently on Hard by using a speedrun, will now try to finish it on Supernova. Then, go back and do it on Normal and play the DLC. Lack of saves is a bit scary, not as bad as Survival Fallout 4 but awkward for sure. Also, am trying to keep companions alive for experience kills so have to reload if they die. Ugh.

After that will probably give DayZ a run during the summer at some point and maybe play some new games, the backlog is shorter but needs to be cleared.

May 2025 T.I.M.E Stories 1,2,3 again again again

I want to play all 9 of the original TIME Stories scenarios so I am making it happen. I have played 6 of them multiple times with different people and solo so I will try and clear them again with my good group of friends here then move onto the final 3 for the first time.

The Asylum:

I was the cannibal girl once again, the best all-rounder IMO. I think Royce was the nymphomaniac, Billy the old lady and Dave had anxious girl.

Billy's character has 1 hp so she was KO'd at one point; we did the dead end route at one point (still being brought up to this day). I think it took two runs but the lads were very good; they solved the riddle themselves IIRC.

Asylum is cool because the characters suck and there's a creepiness to the whole art and writing. 

The Marcy Case:

I was the grizzled veteran for the first time.

Royce was the reporter girl IIRC, Billy the FBI agent and Dave the bodyguard. In comparison to Asylum, all these characters are absolute units.

This took two runs which is not surprising; I think we had everything we needed from the first run to breeze through the second run. The finale we didn't have some of the items to make it easier but had plenty of time. For the second time, lots of noise was made with firearms. In the first few plays of this scenario I did years back, the wisdom was to not use the guns at all - this has changed!

I used to think it was the outright best, but it might be slipping behind EE and Asylum.

The Prophecy of Dragons:

I played the Thief so we could have the option to steal stuff. I always take them if no one else does, so handy to have.

Royce was the Paladin (best character IMO) Billy was the Elven Ranger (also very good) and Dave was the Cleric (I'm still iffy on the mages in this scenario).

We found the 3 McGuffins easily enough and did the Fighter route to the midway point; we almost did the Mage route but I vetoed it as we would completely rely on poor Dave to make every roll.

We managed to clear it in one run, we got to the midway point and got our TU refreshed and then cleared the second half in a second session a few weeks later. We didn't use any tokens/beacons yet but did in Expedition Endurance later.

PoD is the weakest scenario - the multiple routes (4?) to the same midway point make it unfocused. There is no mystery, no plot, no named characters to keep track of throughout the scenario only at the very end.

Points per scenario and token taken:

#	scenario	points/token pick
1	Asylum	31/green blue
2	Marcy	42/green blue
3	Prophecy	64/pink

Next up:

Expedition Endurance we cleared at the end of May 2025 but soon we will play Under the Mask and eventually Lumen Fidei, bringing us up to 6/6 of the ones I've played; after that I will post an update here on those and then get to crack open Brotherhood, Estrella and Madame for the first time.