Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. Since things have died down in Genshin Impact lately, I’ve had a lot of time for other games. And it’s a good thing, too, since this week we got a new Adventure Escape game and the latest in the SIMULACRA series, as well as some other notable games. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s not waste any more time.

SIMULACRA 3

I’ve been a big fan of the SIMULACRA series since the first one released. Actually, I look forward to just about any “found phone” game, but Kaigan is particularly good at their craft. The series often makes your phone appear haunted, and they even lent their services to the Doctor Who game that had weeping angels invade your phone. Now, nearly three years after SIMULACRA 2 released, we get to play SIMULACRA 3, which appears to be even more ambitious than the previous games. I’ve spent about an hour with it so far and I’m actually stumped trying to figure out the passcode I need. There’s a lot of information to dig through, so I’ll probably spend some time doing that on my own before recording another video. I also like how it uses a map to unlock more data. There’s a lot going on here and I can see it’s not all going to be easy. I’m looking forward to playing more, though, and should hopefully have more videos up over the weekend.

Monster Train

Monster Train is a deck-building roguelite that takes place on a train. I often have a hard time getting into new deck builders, but this one has a good tutorial and most things are self-explanatory, or at least not overly cryptic. So I got sucked into it and kept playing until I lost my first game, after about an hour. What makes Monster Train stand out is the way you have three levels of units protecting the train and the crystal at the top. Each round, enemies move up the train to attempt to get to the crystal and you have to try and kill them before that happens. The crystal itself can fend for itself a bit, but if it runs out of health the game is over. I found it quite engaging and have every intention of playing more. But I ran into a small issue on my iPad. Some things are cut off on the sides, and that includes some bosses’ health. I ended up losing a game when I didn’t even realize the boss still had over 1000 health points, because I couldn’t even see it. It’s possible I would have lost either way, but it felt bad playing so blindly. So I’ll probably wait until that issue is fixed before playing more. But the game does have iCloud sync, so if you don’t want to wait, you can play on your iPhone and then switch to your iPad when that problem is remedied. Outside of that I’m really enjoying the game and would highly recommend it.

Bossgame: The Final Boss Is My Heart

Bossgame feels different from anything I’ve played before. You control two separate characters at the same time, one with each thumb. You can attack separately or together for more damage. But each time you attack, you leave yourself vulnerable, since shielding and attacking both drain energy. If you’re low on energy, you’re likely to get stunned or knocked out if the enemy hits you. But there’s a balance to it, as the two character can revive each other as long as one stays alive. You only lose the battle if both of them get knocked out. The first battle was very easy, but I struggled quite a bit on the second one. It took several attempts to finally beat that enemy. The third enemy defeated me so fast that I thought it would be a good time to take a break. It’s possible the default difficulty is too hard for me, but there are a number of accessibility settings to make it easier. I’ll probably try a bit more before resorting to that, especially since the only penalty for losing a battle is having to redo it. I am glad those settings are there as an option, because the game is very story-heavy and this way anyone can get through it even if they find the battles too difficult. I recommend watching some of my video below if you want a better idea of what it’s like.

Endless Road: Reborn

I played Endless Road a few years ago, though don’t remember a whole lot about it. The game recently got remade and re-released under the name Endless Road: Reborn, so I wanted to give it another shot. It’s another roguelike card game, but you actually walk along a path, rolling a die before each turn to see how many steps to take. If you land on an enemy, you enter a battle in which you play cards and try to get a number that’s higher than your enemy’s. Whoever has the higher number gets to attack. If you see your opponent has a number you can’t beat, you can do nothing and you’ll automatically defend instead. It’s an interesting twist on the genre and things move along fairly quickly to keep it from getting stale. I only played a half hour so far, but I’ll definitely continue my game and see how far I can get. Again, I recommend watching some of my video below to see what it’s like.

One Million Miles

I loved the look of One Million Miles and it cost only $1.99, so I decided to take a chance on it. It’s an endless runner in which you guide a spaceship higher and higher through space, avoiding planets and asteroids. When you go through a ring that surrounds a planet, it gives you a little speed boost. And when you collect enough orbs, you can enter hyper speed. If you manage to get far enough in one run, you can unlock new sectors. If you die, you’ll start next time in the latest sector you’ve made it to. Unfortunately, the core gameplay loop got stale for me pretty quickly. There doesn’t seem to be any score based on how you perform — only a distance recorded. And that seems to matter less than just making it to the next sector. But the sector I ended on was too visually noisy for me and it made it hard to play. There’s a lot of bright “stars” that seem to be there just to distract you. The game already felt pretty flat by that point I didn’t feel like forcing myself to play more. Again, you can watch some of my video if you want to see if it’s something you might like.

Adventure Escape Mysteries: Legend of the Time Stones

Just a few months after Mirror Man released, Haiku is back with another Adventure Escape game, this time a sequel to Legend of the Sacred Stones. This one is called Legend of the Time Stones and features the same character, Aila. After a battle against the Sorcerer, the sacred stones shatter and she gets stuck in the past. She then needs to recover the pieces of the stones so she can get back to the present. I’ve always been a fan of games that let you change the environment, so time travel is a favorite. I like swapping between the past and present to, say, make a plant grow faster. I’m only on the fourth chapter and haven’t gotten the future stone yet, so I’m sure it will get even more interesting. Overall, this is one of the more enjoyable Adventure Escape games for me. I’m also working on a walkthrough guide if you need help with any puzzles.

Genshin Impact

And last, I finally finished up the desert part of Sumeru, though I’m sure there’s some things I missed that I’ll have to go back for later. I also played through Nilou’s story quest, so now I’m just waiting for version 3.1 to end so we can get all the new content and characters in 3.2.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also finished The Patient, which had a surprising but believable ending. I also started watching The Peripheral, Alaska Daily and American Horror Story: NYC. Since they’re all still releasing weekly episodes, I’m just watching them as they air. I do prefer watching an entire season or series all at once before I move onto something else, but what can you do? Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’ve been playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped.