2026SEPT14

Overwatched released a new hero trailer for the character Doctrine, and it's fair to say that I can feel the spark of excitement I have for this game slowly but surely return as this year has progressed. Blizzard at Blizzcon had released this hero trailer and announcements for character reworks, notably Roadhog and Sombra, which will alter the current state of the game rather severely in my opinion. The biggest change to Sombra in general is that she will not be listed as a support character rather than DPS! I haven't had a chance to look at her full kit, but I did notice that she is able to heal allies with an AOE ability and she's still able to hack interactables like the medkits.

The hero trailer for Doctrine in my opinion shows off more about the ex-Talon members Doomfist, Sombra, Reaper, and Widowmaker more than it does Doctrine. In reality, we get a few lines from him and a grand transformation once he is out of his prison holding. Most of the trailer shows how well the ex-Talon members fight together. Widowmaker provides ample cover, Reaper is their close-range DPS, Sombra is there to support from position to position, and Doomfist leads them all forward. Doomfist in the trailer even defends Sombra against an enemy shot, which really surprised me. It shows that the Doomfist that we know after his loss to Vendetta is a completely different person than who he was when he was the leader of Talon. Generally, I think this is a good thing because it forces him to overcome obstacles and adapt instead of just being complacent in his and his organization's abilities. Now, he has to depend on his small squad and he must consider them instead of just seeing them as pieces on a chess board.

I got to play as Doctrine for a little bit in my quickplay games but so far haven't been able to get a good handle of him. He has a scepter that he can shoot lasers at enemies and allies alike to damage and heal, respectively. He also has little robots / drones that can follow an ally and heal them over time. I guess I was confused about his abilities and how best to apply them, as I am an Ana main normally, so I wasn't completely sure how to heal with the drones. His ultimate makes people lose their maximum amount of health points, meaning they can only be healed and be alive for amounts less than their original HP. It's like a vortex that goes forward, so it's best to avoid it at all costs. I really hated facing against Doctrine because his ult can be really damaging to an already low team. I need to figure out if Kiriko or Baptiste can counter this ability at all.

Speaking of Baptiste, I believe he got a rework as well for his immortality field. To be honest, I think immortality is pretty mid in comparision to Kiriko's "e" ability that cleanses ability effects on allies. That ability is universally hated by a lot of people as it can cancel pretty much every ultimate and ability that exists in Overwatch at the moment. She can cleanse Reinhardt shatter, Ana's grenade, Orisa's ultimate, and many more things. There was a point where every game I had there was a Kiriko on it. Personally I find her extremely unexciting to play. I just don't think her kit is really for me.

Ana is my main character of choice in Overwatch and it has its pros and cons. One of the biggest cons as of late is that games feel a lot faster than they used to, with teams that have characters with a lot of movement capability being the most preferred. Ana, compared to other support characters, does not have any special movement abilities, so she's a bit easier to target when she's all by herself. Sleep dart, her left shift ability, is really useful but that can only hit one enemy. If the whole enemy team is on the Ana, it is pretty much needed for the team to peel for her so that she doesn't get left behind. Very often do I feel like I weigh my team down as Ana when there are characters like Anran, Sierra, and Venture who can bully me with the help of other characters like Hazard, D.Mon, and Juno. I find myself switching characters when I feel like I am being ineffective as Ana, and I wish I didn't have to do that. It's either I'm more skilled than they are or I switch, and the latter is much more realistic at the moment lol.

My days at being intensely competitive in Overwatch are over. I think I will be fine being forever at gold or platinum ranking for the rest of my life.

Recently, my man asked me if I would be interested in trying our Borderlands with him. He said that a bunch of the games are on sale on Steam right now for half off, and I'll admit I never thought about playing the games even with as much as I have watched streams about the games or where other people are playing them. It's one of my boyfriend's favorite game franchises so I think I'll give it a shot, but every time I try out a new game I always have this sinking worry that I am just sucking a lot hahaha. I am an extremely slow learner, and I need people to be patient with me when I learn, so it's a bit overwhelming for me in the beginning. With my man, I think I'll be able to handle it because he is very patient with me, but it's still something I worry about. A lot of the communities I am involved in have really talented and skilled gamers, so I typically feel out of place. It shouldn't be a huge deal with just my man though.

2026SEPT13

My man and I played some Absolum the other day and it was nice to play a different sort of game than just gachas and Overwatch lately! Absolum is a roguelike beat-em-up game where you pick between four characters to defeat the god Absolum, as the title of the game suggests. First, you need to run through the game several times to be able to reach Absolum. You also need to pick up the two other characters that you can play as, which are Cider and Brome, as you start off with Galandra and Karl. Galandra is an elf swordswoman, Karl is a dwarf with a flamethrower, Cider is a nimble dagger-throwing creature, and Brome is a mage who is the last of the Mowlai, a tribe from Jaroba.

I am not great at roguelites! I've played Hades several times with friends, usually on the Switch, and I am notoriously bad at movement. This game is no exception as I found myself bouncing off of walls because of enemy attacks or dying earlier on in the runs because of my lack of game sense in these sorts of games. My boyfriend, who has much more experience in these games and also fighting games, took to it quite fast and had to carry me in several runs haha. I don't mind because I learn quite a lot from watching him as I die.

The story of Absolum is really captivating. It is set in the fantasy world of Talamh, where the Crimson Order rule over the land with Azra as their king. The resistance to this order is us under the guidance of the Root Sisters, led by Mother Uchawi. As we do our runs, we find out that Azra is hoping to harness the power of the god Absolum, a being who has the capacity to destory the entirety of the world. Azra is deluded to think that he can tame the god, and as we defeat him, we have to find a way to defeat the god Absolum as well. Later we also find out that Mother Uchawi and Azra were together, and she is pregnant with his child. Honestly this didn't surprise me because Azra has all this propaganda against the Root Sisters that reads more hateful than it is criticizing their purpose and organization.

For the themes surrounding this game, I can understand a running commentary on "what is the meaning of life" and "how do we value life?" We find out in the story that in order for players to be reborn, there is a sacrifice that has to be made each time. Essentially, this means someone else dies in our place. It brings in the questions of "is that even fair?" or "do people who die for us even get a say?" It makes the player question the morality of the Root Sisters and if what we're fighting for is really what we want.

Of course, I'm still playing through the story and I plan to play through it again without my man so that I can gain a better understanding of the story in full, but with what we know so far part of me cannot help but wonder if a lot of the story could have been prevented if Azra and Mother Uchawi were able to align their ideals. Azra saw the damage that magic had done to their world, but he still thirsted for its power. Mother Uchawi saw the usefulness in regeneration and rebirth, but was never honest about the price we must pay for it. If only the two of them could accept that magic is inherent to their world someway, than maybe so many wouldn't suffer.

Either way, I'm not sure who I trust so far in the story! Mother Uchawi is staged as the "good" with Azra and Absolum as the "bad", but I think there's a lot more nuance to each side than what we are originally told.

2026SEPT10

There's a new event in Onmyoji called the "Martial Tournament", where players have to team up in squads to defeat fairly difficult bosses. I only manage to defeat two before work today before realizing that I probably need help taking down these bosses with hundreds of millions of health in their health bar lol. It's a little bit embarassing how I'm already level 51 in the game but I don't exactly have super strong shikigami yet. I only am able to play during my free time so the amount of time I can farm is quite little, and I also am a free-to-play player! I am held back by the currency that I can get from the game along with the AP (action points) I have to do literally anything.

I opted to just make my own squad and see if other people join, haha. I kept getting the message that too many people were requesting to join other squads and I should try others and I was getting tired of it. Sometimes you just gotta do it yourself. I almost even made my own guild because I couldn't find a guild that was casual! It still surprises me how many guilds in Onmyoji are competitively inclined, like they have rank requirements and a Discord server and all that. Maybe on swome level I crave something like that, but I'd say I'm currently not ready. I'd rather just grow with my current guild, who are very much into Bara dudes. The name of our guild has BARA in it.

Anyways, I'm going to seriously try to get through as much of the story as I can this weekend and worry about currency at some other time. I think there are other aspecs to the game that I haven't unlocked yet, so I should try seeing how far I can go.

Part of me really wants to try my hand at Epic7 again, but it is SUCH a time crunch. There is so much farming you have to do for weapons and equipment and it is ridiculously expensive to level up a single set of six equipment. I really enjoyed the story though, and found the crisis of the world being rebuilt over and over again to be an interesting conflict, but it's still a lot to stomach every time I come back. It's like more and more story gets added and I can't feasibly catch up! Unfortunately I feel this way about Genshin as well where I think I'll be perpetually stuck in Sumeru... lol. Both Epic7 and Genshin have compelling characters as well, but I can only do so many gachas at one time.... I shall place my time in Onmyoji for now.

2026SEPT06

Ah yes surprise surprise here I am to talk about Onmyoji.

As of now I have made it past the "Moan" stage of Orochi - the boss which you can gather souls and scales to buy more souls - and now I am trying to work my way to getting through "Judgement". This is how I know that my shikigami are not quite there yet because the difference between the two stages is so stark and wide, I barely struggle in the former but severely lack enough power in the latter that I fail it each time. It doesn't help that the event has ended and I am all out of currency to level up souls that I have got so it's put a harsh halt to my progress of levelling up in the game.

This is probably a good sign for me to get through more of the story, as I am bound to get some currency and other rewards if I do so. But I... am lazy LOL. I just don't want to click thru the story I want to be able to read everything and enjoy it but I need to be in the headspace for it. It's weird to explain.

2026AUG31

I am plagued by this event called "Fortune Fox" in Onmyoji. Basically we can fight a boss with tiers of difficulty, with the tiers determining how many and what sort of rewards we can receive. I opted to say at the normal difficulty tier because my shikigami are currently strong, but they're not strong where they can one shot entire waves of enemies. I'm not quite there yet lol... I say as I am nearly 200 hours back into the game after years of not playing. It's easy to get sucked into it because of "ooooo big number go big", at least for me.

The drops for this event range from grade 5 to 6 souls to mystic drops of scales or scraps of forgotten books. The scales and the forgotten books can be exchanged to get even more souls, specifically grade 6 souls. These are the souls that you'll want to equip your shikigami with for late game, and I have a LOT of souls but not all of them are quality. The thing with gacha games like Onmyoji is that they're highly dependent on the amount that you farm, which for me isn't as much as other people. Currently my shikigami can do critical hits in the 20k range, but nothing really higher than that because none of my DPs' crit damage is over 200%. I also don't have enough crit souls or materials to level up the souls, so getting the right souls for the job can be a pretty long process. I'll have to get a soul with some pretty good stats right out the gate, level it up in hopes that the sub stats that I want will be upgraded, and then spends half a million gold coins getting the soul to level 15, which is the max. All it takes is for one roll of a sub stat to go wrong for the soul to be not useful, which sucks.

One thing I am pretty happy about is that I've been lucky with my summons! I managed to get Draconic Sukuka Gozen, who is a pretty solid DPS in the game especially for Duels. Right now, I'm not doing so great in Duels lol. I largely think it's because I don't have enough speed on my Demoniac Shuten Doji, so he doesn't go first which fucks my team over. This is one thing I didn't miss about these sorts of games - the speed wars. Epic 7 worked like this too, as whoever had more speed would usually win in a PVP situation. What I probably need to study more is team compositions, because right now I'm kind of playing it by ear. I have D. Shuten Doji as my pusher - a shikigami that slows the move bar of the enemies - and Inaba Kaguya as my orb provider. Amaterasu is my main DPS, with Ubume as my support DPS. Currently I'm thinking I need to have another support shikigami, but I'm not sure who and what exactly I want them to do.

So far I've been pretty stubborn about reading guides or looking into Discord servers for help. I really like being able to figure out something on my own and trying things until they stick. If someone straight up gives me the answer for something I kind of (or really) lose the passion or motivation for it which I guess can suck. I do want to do better in the PVP modes of this game, but I also don't want to take away from the fun that I have just trying things out and seeing where it takes me. Luckily for me, the people that I've come across in-game through the chats and co-op modes have been really kind, which makes me think I should just be able to ask questions in the world chat and not fear any answers. Still - gamers can be unpredictable and I also don't want to be made fun of for my ignorance to the meta-defining aspects of this game. Of course, it doesn't help that the meta changes as soon as a new, much more powerful character is introduced. Power creep will always be a problem in gacha games, in my opinion. It's an unfortunate but true thing.

My favorite shikigami so far has to be Amaterasu. She is so pretty and her voice is so ethereal. I also really love all of her skins in game, none of them look bad on her. Some of the other shikigami, like Kuro Mujou, only have one good looking skin (TO ME! MY OPINION!!) but I guess that's either because they're lower rarity or not as popular.

I already cannot wait to see what event comes next because I need me some currency! And also some skill durumas. I've found that most gacha games make leveling up skills to be incredibly tedious, and Onmyoji is no exception. Most of the time, you get the skill daruma shards as a reward and not the whole skill duruma, but for this Fortune Fox event, you can purchase a skill duruma with the event currency. Just one though, of course. You can't be too greedy bwahaha.

2026AUG25

It was announced recently that Hoyolab - the same people who made Wuthering Waves, Zenless Zone Zero, and Genshin Impact - are coming out with a souls-like game. I cannot even think of the name right now, but when I looked at the trailer and screenshots all I could think about was how similar it seemed to Elden Ring. Part of me hopes that this isn't on purpose, that it's a mere coincidence, but the larger part of me disagrees. An unfortunate thing about the gaming industry in its current state, whether it be in the US or overseas, is the heavy use of "inspiration" and it being a bit too heavy handed. Either way, I want to be proven wrong and I think I may give the game a try when it comes out.

2026AUG22

One thing I really like about Onmyoji is that the game doesn't really punish you for building units "incorrectly", or rather, differently. I like being able to test different things, and when things work, they work! For example, Kusa is a shikigami in Onmyoji that is a Rare support / healer. The "best" way to build her is with Nightwing souls, where the 4 piece set allows the shikigami to deal 20% HP steal when doing damage. Kusa benefits from this because she has a relatively above average attack stat (rated A), meaning that she can yoink enemy HP pretty intensely if you build her to crit. I, however, just really want a buff healer, so I stacked a bunch of Attack on her and opted for the Tree Spirit souls, where the 4 piece allows the shikigami to have a 20% increase in healing effects. I have not noticed me struggling to clear stages such as Orochi or Nen with Kusa on my lineup built like this.

With Wuthering Waves, I feel like this is less true. Similar to Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves is a hack-and-slash gacha game where players benefit from chaining attacks in a certain combination with a certain group of characters. An example of this is Calcharo, who is a Broadblade user that benefits from being able to chain Heavy Attacks, usually during his "ultimate" which is called the Resonance Liberation. He relies heavily on sub-DPS that boost his damage, such as Lynae and Mornye, but both of these characters are 5 star rarity and hard to get. His best in slot weapon is also 5 star rarity, meaning free-to-play players such as myself have to count on luck when summoning on the weapon banners. I hate luck! And despite playing gacha games for more than a decade, the element of luck and surprise is something I'll never enjoy about this genre of games.

The rigidness that games like Wuthering Waves and Genshin have for building characters is only felt by me because I like to mess around waaaaay too much. But resources are precious, and it costs quite a lot to upgrade weapons, characters, their abilities, and so on. All three games that I mentioned in this entry all suffer from the issue of lack of currency. What I mean by this is that the currency used to upgrade anything is pretty integral, and cannot just be wasted willy nilly trying out new builds. In Onmyoji, it can cost 2 million gold coins or more to fully upgrade 6 souls for one shikigami.

I can understand that this would be where someone would say something like, "participate in the events JAAM, just simply spend as much time as you can in the game-" SHUT UPPPP AHHHHHHHH. I want to be able to enjoy the game as well, and forcing myself to play more than I want seems like a terrible idea! I think it's possible to be able to casually enjoy gacha games without having to no-life the game throughout the week. This is precisely why I prefer Onmyoji over Wuthering Waves most days because most of the time I want to run my dailies, do some of the story, and see if I can upgrade any of my shikigamis' builds even if it's marginal. What I also like about Onmyoji is that when you start a new account, you are able to get a "rookie boost" where you can gain resources by doing simple quests and tasks. I've pretty much finished that and it helped me create a process for what I want to do in the game when I log in. Games like Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact sometimes feel really overwhelming because there is so much content, there is so much to do, there is so much that you need to do- you get the point.

Don't get me wrong! I still really like Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact. I actually think I like Wuthering Waves more than Genshin Impact because the story is so compelling and the characters have a surprising amount of depth to them when you go through the story. So far, I really connected with Jinhsi, Shorekeeper, and Zani's storylines. I won't lie - there's times where I feel like I'm intruding on a really personal and private conversation between two people even if they're fictional characters, but that is why I have been keeping on with the ride of Wuthering Waves. My favorite out of the three that I mentioned is Zani, and overworked but passionate head of security for the Montelli family of Ragunna. I love that you find out that as overworked as she is, she values what she does. She complains and dreams of a vacation, but she can't imagine abandoning her post or her work. I like that the main character, Rover, connects with her resolve and drive instead of telling her that she needs more rest.

Wil say though.... Wuthering Waves feels like a harem anime at times ^^;; there's these beautiful women practically throwing themselves at the main character and my aroace ass is over here like.... um. Hi. Thank you. LOL.

2026AUG21

Lately I've been playing a lot of Onmyoji and Wuthering Waves with both of them being pretty well-known gacha games. Onmyoji is a bit older than Wuthering Waves, but I found myself coming back to it after feeling a little bit lost on what to play after a long day at work. Of course, only an insane person would say that playing gacha games after work is relaxing. But for me it honestly is.

What makes Onmyoji frustrating as compared to Wuthering Waves is how the units (called shikigami) need to be built. Certain characters need more or less speed than others, or crit damage, or hp, etc. Just at a glance, you cannot tell what character needs what unless you look at the comments of the character. Not every shikigami has a comment that tells you the ideal build, and it's more likely that the comment could be several years old. I am aware that most gacha game communities benefit from the kindness of the community, and Onmyoji is no exception. There is a Google spreedsheet of that shows the viability of each shikigami in every gamemode, and there are builds that are shared by others in Reddit and community run forums and websites. I am the sort of person who likes to figure things out on his own, but I am of course not immune to being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of possibilities gacha games tend to have for building characters.

To build up a shikigami, souls need to be equipped to further boost their stats. In Wuthering Waves, these are instead called echoes. Both games have these assignable "weapon" like items that have a main stat and several substats that can make characters more powerful. What is grating (and this is of course common in gacha games lol) is that these substats are rolled randomly and are a gacha separate from the gacha of summoning the characters. So let's say I am shooting for a typical damage type build where I'll need a lot of attack, crit (critical hit percent) and crit damage. Ideally, all of the assignable souls / echoes that I give my characters will have these substats. My luck is.... horrid, for lack of a better word. So hence, my souls and echoes are not the best at the moment.

The only way to get better souls or echoes is to simply keep playing more of the game. But of course, these are gacha games! There must be limiting metrics, such as AP (action power) that allow you to do certain tasks in these games. It's frustrating because if you want to build up a character, you'll need to spend AP, but once you run out, you have no choice but to wait (or pay.... lol) for it to regenerate back. This is annoying, because that means I only really get to work on one character at a time per session that I'm playing. When I'm in the zone, I don't wanna focus on just one character! I want to be able to level up and power up all the units I want!

Now, dear reader, you could be thinking, "Why the hell is this guy playing these games anyways?" I LIKE SEEING BIG NUMBER GO UP OKAY. I KNOW THESE GAMES ARE PREDATORY AND WANT YOUR MONEY!!! And I will protest that notion by being the most annoying free to play gacha player in the universe.