I have been making steady progress in Pillars of Eternity. I ran some errands in Defiance Bay, went though the catacombs and infiltrated a cult there and killed some zombies in an asylum along with quite a few innocent patients. Although there are still some mysteries remaining in the city, I starting to feel a cramped and wanted to get out of the city.  So I went to my keep and cleared a level underneath it. In the level below that, there were some trolls which I decided to leave alone for now. I get a bit of Ultima Underworld vibes of these levels, which is good. I’ve started upgrading the walls of the castle. This is starting to get expensive, although one side of walls costs less than a fine hauberk, which is a bit weird.

In between all the questing about watchers and pillars and stuff, I played a lot of Mario Odyssey together with my son. It’s the first time I played Mario Odyssey, never having had an original Switch. It’s only my third 3D Mario after Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy. I never had a Gamecube to play Mario Sunshine and I don’t count 3D World as full 3D Mario. I loved Galaxy but never played part 2. It’s  been on my wish list ever since playing 1. I guess I felt that I couldn’t enjoy Galaxy to the fullest, it being so low res. Although I’m not someone who has to have the best graphics, I was a bit annoyed by the Wii graphics on my HD TV on the Wii U. But that’s all going to be fixed with the remake being announced. I guess I then don’t have an excuse not to play it anymore.

Back to Odyssey: I like it very much, but I do think it’s a bit too easy. I guess collecting all the moons in every level will be difficult, but those are all optional and I don’t have enough interest to go for all of them. I feel like if they just had scaled down on the number of moons in a level it would have been a much better experience. This is an aspect I like way more in Mario 64. In that game it’s more or less clear what you’re supposed to do to get the star and you need most of them to progress. In Odyssey the moons are just lying around.

Also, some things are just weird. Like why are the minibosses rabbits that don’t fit in the Mario universe? And why is the ship a hat and why is it fueled by moons? I don’t get it, and it distracts from the game. And why is there a dinosaur in the city? Although that one is kind of fun! I’m looking forward to confront Bowser after all those pesky rabbits.