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本作的演出效果真的拔群，各种酷炫动作层出不穷，人物的表情动作也都超细致，从过场动画到战斗中的各种小细节都值得一看。动作设计也是卡普空式的一流，我觉得远胜于魂系游戏，包括Elden Ring和只狼。动作反馈的延迟和手感，敌人动作的可视程度，都是精心设计对玩家友好。鬼武具和一些敌人的设计又有许多怪物猎人的影子，鬼双刀乱舞自不必说，夜鸟的翻身活脱就是雷狼龙的弟子，作为一个怪猎玩家玩起来甚至觉得有点亲切。

对玩家友好这一点是我想着重说的。我一直觉得魂系游戏有种拿受虐当好玩的倾向。比如你并不需要把恢复药搞得那么紧俏，遍地都是药草照样可以好玩；也不需要让玩家一不小心就摔死，高台都直接挡住让人不会摔死就好，这种动作游戏并不是马里奥，跳台子并不好玩；玩家挂了之后不需要有惩罚也不需要往回倒退到不知多远的篝火，随时自动存盘就挺好。我觉得魂系游戏在关卡设计和剧情渲染方面是有很多亮点的，但我会更想玩战神鬼武者这些对玩家友好的游戏一些。

我还蛮喜欢鬼武者这个一段主线一段支线的节奏的，所谓的开放世界其实也就是去接一接支线任务做掉，有一点点探索要素，走在路上找找宝箱救个村民什么的，但并不多就是了。反复打一些精英怪确实可以感觉到自己的技术越来越熟练。精英怪的练习也会让玩家更熟悉boss的一些动作的时机。剑戟难度大部分的boss也都可以在几次之内就过掉，整体体验很流畅。虽然打义经的时候为了快点搞定去打火纹万缕千丝我直接把难度调低了。。。试了几次就有种“我继续练个几小时也能过，但是何必呢“的感觉

这游戏虽然有中文配音，但还是日文配音听起来比较对路。中文声优好像总有点播音腔。。

整体来讲我觉得鬼武者是个很棒的重启，吸收了鬼泣/怪猎/魂系的精华。年度游戏有力竞争者！

Kenai Fjords

My first step out of airport was Seward REI in Anchorage. Picked up a bear spray, a pair of microspikes for Harding Icefield hike but ended up not using, and some trail snacks. I then had a decent burger next door without realizing I’d pretty much live on burger/pizza/salad for the next few days.

The drive from Anchorage to Seward was very scenic. A winding road along the coast, maybe a fjord coast? The water color changes along the way, some parts are in the glacier emerald color and look really beautiful. There are trail heads and pullout whale watching points along the way.

I stopped midway to do a warmup hike to Byron Glacier. It’s a very easy and accessible trail. I saw three babies in baby carriers along the way.. At the end there is a small glacier right by a river. People can easily walk up to the glacier. I’m surprised this glacier hasn’t melted yet.

Then I drove to Seward. Nice seaside town, quite touristy. I checked into my hostel airbnb then drove to a very popular restaurant downtown, Ray’s Waterfront, with people lining up in waiting area, ordered a “fisherman’s stew” and it sucks balls… nothing wrong with ingredients but I just don’t think the chef knows how to cook it, and there are even some pasta in the stew to make you full. I was disappointed by the meal.

After the meal it was 8PM, and I realized sunset time was like 10:30PM in Alaska in this season. At the hostel I read the Exit Glacier short hike was a “must-do” in Seward so I just drove there to do a late night sunset hike. The trail was easy and empty. I had an overview of the Exit Glacier but wasn’t impressed. But, this counts as a visit to Kenai Fjords National Park!

The next morning I got up and went straight to the Exit Glacier trailhead to start the Harding Icefield trail. This trail is so famous that it shows up on every “top trails in Alaska” search I did. After the underwhelming Exit Glacier trail, I was actually a bit concerned if Harding Icefield trail was overrated. Thank god it turned out well worth the fame and effort.

Harding Icefield trail is a classic alpine trail that goes through multiple terrains of forest, meadow, then tundra. You start getting open and nice view once hitting the meadow section. There are also prairie dogs all around and supposedly marmots too but I didn’t see any marmot.. at a point you start seeing the Exit Glacier from a close view, not as close as you can touch the glacier, but you can see the glimmer and texture clearly. At the end of the meadow section there is an awesome viewpoint you can see the full Exit Glacier with those unreal blue ice surfaces. This is about half way to the end, lots of people turn back at this point and I think it’s totally fine. I think they should name this part as something like “Upper Exit Glacier Trail”, as it’s way more impressive than the “Exit Glacier Trail” I hiked the day before, lol.

The second half of the trail was quite tough. I was fatigued and but the steepness was only bigger. The trail was mostly broken rocks and surrounded by snows. There were maybe a dozen times I needed to hike through short sections of snows, but nothing warranted any special snow-walking gears like microspikes. Some of the snows had patches in the pink cotton candy color. I learned at Big Basin National Park that these were microbes, didn’t realize I would see much pinker version here in Alaska. Near the end of the trail you’d see a tiny wooden hut as an emergency shelter. Passing that corner and suddenly you’d be rewarded by an expansive view to the other side of the mountain you’ve been climbing. It’s a wonderful view of the Harding Icefield, with several more glaciers and icewalls fed by the icefield. I read somewhere the visible part from this viewpoint was like 5% of the whole Harding Icefield. It’s hard to fathom the whole scale.

An ice cream at the creamery in Seward was a great way to wrap up this hiking day. Then I started driving back up to Anchorage. I wish I had more time in Seward to do a glacier kayaking tour to view wildlife. Next time.

I made a short stop at Potter Marsh Wildlife Viewing Boardwalk on the way to Anchorage. This is the first time I saw a school of salmon in a river! Aka. the famous salmon run. It’s pretty amazing how many of them just hanging out in very shallow water. It looked like they were resting and preparing for another push upstream. And this place is right by the state highway. Incredible.

I had a bowl of decent ramen at Anchorage downtown that night, thanks to Ginny’s recommendation. It was actually very good, but also very expensive… more expensive than good ramen in NYC for sure. And that shop also sells A5 wagyu by weight.

Lake Clark

My trip to Lake Clark NP started at a nice little “terminal” of Lake Clark Air. There are a row of such charter plane airports right by the main Anchorage airport. It’s kinda of the smallest airport you can think of: an office with a few counters, a parking lot, and a runway with a few small planes in the back. Alaskan people are pretty nice and warm in general, maybe because of the remoteness, maybe because they mainly live on hospitality. Either way it’s a good place for visitors.

I boarded a small plane with ~12 other people. As the only solo traveller I got the co-pilot seat, yes! The aerial view was gorgerous. The plane entered a canyon (or a fjord?) filled with clouds, glaciers flowing down from mountains on both sides. It looked incredible.

The plane made a detour to land at a different airport before our destination, because of fogs. Passengers started chatting and I realized most visitors to Lake Clark NP were national park collectors. Two families on my plane were achieving their 63 national parks on this Alaska trip, and one of them was actually hitting 63 when they land at Lake Clark! I guess it’s because there is no particular reason to visit Lake Clark NP other than checking it off the list? It’s a beautiful park with a nice resort (Lake Clark Resort, where I was staying at and booked the flights and tours), but you could do most activities elsewhere: Katmai for bear-viewing, other parks for fishing, hiking, etc… Lake Clark is an expensive option if only for activities, but, hey the name of a National Park definitely counts for something.

Half hour later the fog was baked off by the sun, and we flew into Lake Clark resort as planned. It was a nice resort right by the pristine Lake Clark, with Mount Tanalian in the backdrop, and several colorful floatplanes by the shore. It seems most workers at the resort are young people and a lot of them are local from Port Alsworth. It felt like this little town evolves around this national park and this one resort. Interesting dynamics. I wonder what the town looked like before national parks became this huge draw.

After putting down my stuff into a fresh painted “wild cabin” which is like 10 minutes hiking from the main resort area, I jumped into a 4-seat floatplane to fly to Katmai to see bears! Lake Clark is kind of half way from Anchorage to Katmai. So… if you don’t care about expense, Lake Clark is a decent “base camp” to stay, eat nice food, and do excursions into surrounding attractions such as Katmai. Note to myself in 10 years,

Katmai

The flight to Katmai had spectacular views. Floodplains with this unusual bright yellow color, big and small lakes in deep blue. Near the shore of these lakes you can often see clear shades of blue, that almost look like tropical waters.

Katmai is this unique and famous place you are guaranteed to see a bunch of bears, as long as you come in the right season. You can even check their bear situation online from their “bear cam”. I arrived in August which can be a hit or miss. July and September apparently are the usual peak seasons. I got lucky and saw 7 bears on that day!

You need to take a ~10-minute “bear school” lesson once you arrive. Here I learned brown bears and grizzly are actually the same species! Then you enter an electric fence and hike a short trail to the bear-viewing platforms! There I immediately saw 4 bears hanging around the famous Brooks Falls fishing.

The main viewing platform limits each person’s visit to 30 minutes. I arrived at a time that wasn’t super busy. I was able to get to the platform twice almost in a row. During my stay I saw more bear showing up. Some stood on top of the falls, but they were actively fishing not just waiting for fish to jump into their mouths. It seems they often attack when a fish just makes a jump and is in this exposed position. More bears actually fish under the falls in the river. And they have different techniques, some pounce with their paws, some dive into the water or rush around. The skill levels are also obviously different: some bears caught a fish every 10 minutes or so, and one poor bear didn’t any when I was viewing.. he was grunting and talking to other bears, maybe begging for some help or leftovers?

The spot on top of the falls apparently has some pecking order. Two younger bears were fishing there side by side for a while, then a big fat guy showed up from upstream. The two young guys caught a glimpse of the big guy and immediately gave up the spot. The big guy moved into the spot, took a sniff, and didn’t even take the spot…

I’m also impressed by how much a bear eats.. each salmon is about 5lb. Bears eat the best parts of salmon with some leftovers, even so, they are still eating at least 10lbs of fish per hour. That feels like a lot..

Our pilot took a different route when flying from Katmai back to Lake Clark. We flew over the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, which is the aftermath of a huge volcano explosion in 1912. The whole valley still looks like a wiped out desert with very little vegetation, and a huge crater with something that looks like a molten core in it. Pretty cool to view from the air. Apparently people do backpacking in this valley too? I cannot imagine.

We also flew over some rivers we could see so many salmon even from the plane. Our pilot pointed out a crashed floatplane from the day before on a riverbank, with two helicopters on the crash site. He did tell us no one died during the incident but still… we saw people on rafts floating in the rivers for fishing, and floatplanes landing in small lakes close to these rivers. We also saw a bunch of bears fishing along the rivers too. I guess this would be a more “intimate” bear viewing experience, as you wouldn’t be on a wooden fenced platform.

Back to Lake Clark

So at Lake Clark Resort I had a nice dinner, and breakfast. I was assigned to a table with 3 other solo travelers and we had good chats about travel experiences. They are also national park lovers, but not nearly as dedicated as the retiree family collectors I met on the plane.

I had another day at Lake Clark resort so I did a moderate hike to Tanalian Falls. This hike turned out to be nicer than I expected. The falls have a pretty big volume of water flow, and you can get very close to it by walking onto some rocks extending into the river. While I was at the fall, the sun came out and treated me with a nice rainbow! I also saw a bunch of different mushrooms on this trail. Overall a peaceful and nice trail. But this trail alone definitely does not worth the dollars to fly in, haha.

Denali

After Lake Clark, I realized I didn’t have much else planned for the last two days of my trip. I could do some day hikes around Anchorage and visit some local spots, which didn’t sound very attractive. The other option was to drive 4 hours north to Denali National Park. Since this was becoming a national park collecting trip… Denali it is. Denali was the 47th US National Park I visited, out of the 63.

My actual experience at Denali was somewhat… uneventful. Denali is an atypical national park. The main road is very long, 92 miles stretching into the park. And it’s currently partially closed due to a landslide. So visitors can only drive up to mile 15, and then take a bus to mile 43. It sounds like bus is the main way to experience the park, and the narrated tour bus was booked up months ahead of time. Another option was to take the “transit bus” which drives the same route, just without narration. And you can get off at any point on the road, hike into the wilderness, then hike back to the road and hail a bus back… Off-trail hiking is allowed and even encouraged in Denali NP. Very different than my usual hikes.. so I only hiked some maintained trails in the Savage River (mile 15) area, and planned to join a outdoor survival skill tour the next morning. But the tour ended up canceled on me because I didn’t finish the payment in time…. so the next morning I just hiked another short trail and wandered around the visitor centers, lol. It was pretty chaotic.

Oh I also visited the sled dog kennels at Denali park. That was fun, to see sled dogs pulling sleds and learn something about them. Sled dogs are very strong and built for long-distance hauling. They are much more efficient than cars and human.

My highlight from Denali was probably meeting this girl on the Savage Alpine Trail. It was a tougher trail than I expected. At the top I saw another solo hiker sitting there coming from the other side, so I started chatting with her. Quite pleasant chats and I was surprised we chatted for so long that I started feeling cold, with swarms of mosquitos flying around us… when we were about to head our ways, I remembered the pizza place at Denali Ginny recommended to me, and asked if she wanted to join me for a pizza dinner, and she agreed! I left my number with her and started rushing down to get signal so I don’t miss the text message (as if I would miss the message if I went down slower, lol…)

That pizza dinner was a blast. I ordered the “MP” price king crab pizza which was about $100 more expensive than any other pizza at the restaurant, and it was delicious! Two full king crab legs as pizza “toppings” was not a scene I expected to see in Alaska, haha.

My best view of Denali was at Mary’s McKinley View Cafe, halfway back to Anchorage, lol. You cannot really see Denali from the first 15 miles of the park road.

Overall, Alaska is a great place. Vast nature, true wilderness, abundant wildlife, truly unique bear views, both mountain and sea, fire and ice. It’s also really expensive, remote, and inaccessible. You have to hire transportations or tour guides to top attractions. You’ll have a good time here if you’re ready to spend, or you’re a true adventurer.

最近看到下一代火纹万缕千丝的广告突然想起来火纹Engage这个三年前玩了一半放下的游戏。翻出来重开，很快就想起来上一次为什么扔下不玩了，普通模式过于无聊。。再重开经典模式+困难难度，再加上不打随机战练级，感觉好多了。

火纹Engage的系统相当复杂，几十个角色加上几十个纹章士，搭配自由度很高。搭配纹章士可以获得属性加成，获得强力技能，还可以继承纹章士技能从而在不搭配此纹章士的时候仍然可以使用。说实话一开始上手的时候是让人有点糊涂的，因为要素有点太多。玩到一小半的时候我才大概完全明白纹章士技能这个系统。加上火纹传统的武器相克，攻击范围等等要素，战棋的部分如果不是等级过高或过低的话，玩起来还是很有趣的。

相对来说本作的故事和人物没有风花雪月那么有看头，很多时候我都想快进。召唤的纹章士是火纹历代的角色，但我对火纹的旧作并没有怎么玩过，所以不觉得有多大吸引力。支援对话仍然是刻画群像的主要方式，写得还算可以吧。但故事的老套程度还是让人觉得不看也无所谓就是了。中后期还不停的有新队员入队，我后来基本上是按战斗强度在选人了，并没有太多角色喜好。

火纹这种战棋的爽感往往来自于在压力下命悬一线的过关，本作很多关卡有追击敌兵，boss也够强，可以创造出这种状况。另一类爽感是培养超强角色和打法，用超出设计的方式来解决原本很难的关卡，本作增加成长率的技能，和一些很强的法杖也留下了不少这类邪道打法的余地。纹章士我有时候觉得像是在驾驶高达，结合的时候也有那种力量突然暴涨的爽感。。总的来说是系统很不错的一作。

这游戏主要是扮演一个登山家去登一座还没有人登上去过的雪山Kami。游戏的大部分体验就是操作主角去攀岩，一步一步把手脚放到合适的地方，选择路线，打岩钉，沿着绳子爬上爬下。还有一个生存系统，需要吃东西喝水和保持温度。听起来好像很无聊，但出奇的好玩。如果对攀岩有一点点兴趣的话，很快就会一边操作一边想象着代入，会进入一定的心流状态，也有一点点那种命悬一线的刺激。一段一段攀岩中间有壮丽的景色可看，也有路上遇到的小故事。游戏的剧情自然也是围绕那个登山永恒的话题：为什么要登山。路上会遇到稀少的几个角色，会通过零碎的文字和物品来看到一些故去登山家的故事，还有居住在雪山上的原住民村落遗迹。一路玩下来节奏很好。

这个游戏的很多细节都让我很怀念在尼泊尔和秘鲁的山上的日子。比如几乎不能跑，在平地上只能慢慢的走，要跑的话只能跑几步就会停下来喘，并且会剧烈消耗体力。前期的时候看到适合的观景点都会过去坐下休息一下，照个相，游戏的设计者也很懂什么样的景会让爬山的人心旷神怡。还有在最后一部分雪山上走的那种费力的感觉，离山顶只有几十米平路也是要慢慢的走过去，很写实。

这游戏相当的难。。存盘点之间经常有巨大的岩壁要爬只能谨慎的靠岩钉续命，岩钉打歪了会坏掉越来越少。食物和水都不充足，到下一个存盘点之前弹尽粮绝并不少见，但每个存盘点也不见的会补上，捡到一点点食物，找不到水源都是常事。攀爬的部分开头还在熟悉的阶段也相当难，屡屡摔下来的结果往往是资源越来越少，于是就变得更难。。整体是个很brutal的体验。。还好游戏里内置了assist mode，可以开一些功能来降低难度。。。我后来基本上就一直开着站到实地就存盘的功能在玩了，实在不想动不动挂掉之后回退一大段重爬。年纪大了，不想和游戏太死磕。有一些压力可以享受到紧张感就好。

忍龙这个古老的系列我一直就没玩过，可能是因为动作游戏太多玩不过来，又比较习惯CAPCOM系和战神的手感，当年在PS2还是PS3上试玩了一下忍龙不怎么习惯这轻飘飘的打击感就没玩下去。仁王我也是在习惯魂系之前试玩过某一代，觉得好难又黑乎乎找不到路就懒得玩了。后来通过Elden Ring接受了一些魂系游戏之后，突然觉得仁王这个和风Elden Ring好像看起来很有吸引力。二月份仁王3一出来我就买了，然后就放在PS5里一直没机会玩因为外婆和娃占据了客厅几个月。。最近终于开动了。

仁王3玩起来的感觉就是量大管饱，内容多到有点夸张。武士和忍者两个截然不同的战斗风格，每个风格有七种武器，每个武器有一堆招式，武士风格还分上中下三个架势。动作要素很快就多到玩不过来。武士风格有弹反又有重武器重甲，比较符合我的风格，于是我前期大多时候在用武士风格玩，大太刀为主，其他武器也多少都试了试。但后期开始发现忍者风格实在是简单太多了，没有精力了武士风格只能大喘气，忍者风格可以跑来跑去扔忍术，扔几个忍术又有精力了可以回去继续打。这根本就是不同的游戏啊。。于是后期我开始进入了一个打小兵用武士打boss换忍者的状态。武士风格穿重甲拿锤子轰过去，大部分小兵都一两套连招就可以秒掉，省心省力。打boss用忍者模式到处闪加上扔炸弹，一般一两次就能过，轻松愉快。

这游戏的动作系统虽然很庞大，但感觉不如怪物猎人那么精致。打来打去会觉得最基础的那几招类似轻轻重也就够用了，其他的招都想不起来用也没啥payoff。也可能难度高了之后会不一样？也有个别招数强到变态有点赖皮，比如大太刀的地扫斩。可以说是内容有余，深度不足。但手感还是很不错的，跟怪物猎人有点像，巨大的地图八九十小时的内容，换来换去各种武器感觉很快就推完了。

另外仁王的和风设定还是挺好看的。虽然故事并没有什么新奇之处，但游戏里有很多日本的名人名刀小典故，又有中文很容易读。我在游戏里还挺喜欢翻阅一下道具的背景故事，挺好看的。很坑的一点是我一开始买了美版，只有莫名其妙的英文音译，玩了十来分钟之后毅然又买了个亚版开始重玩。

过了几天看了一下奖杯发现这游戏的奖杯设置还挺友好。作为一个舔图比较仔细的玩家我已经解掉绝大多数了。于是又花了几十分钟拿了个白金。

卡普空的一个新作，虽然感觉上有点小品比较单薄，但背着机器人萝莉打枪这个“养闺女”设定还是让我果断买了。玩起来的感觉有点像多年前的Vanquish，场景风格和手感都有点像，但玩法机制差别还是比较大，谈不上精神续作。

Pragmata的这个打敌人要一边玩走格子小游戏hack一边射击的核心机制看起来比较新鲜拉风，玩起来其实并没有多好玩。我个人觉得mind flow有点接不上。我谨慎估计这游戏不会有续作，就算有也要大改玩法。

其他方面倒是都可圈可点，萝莉的外形和配音都不错。我为了出差路上玩买了Switch 2版，画质略渣，但我目测PS5版也没好太多，毕竟低成本作品。打枪的手感不错，设计的控制型和防御型武器也都值得一玩。整体比较短小精干，感觉各种新东西玩一圈也就快通关了。Boss也都不难，基本上都是一遍过或者重试一两次就能过的水平，比较玩家友好。

之前五六个月都是卫斯理的奶奶外婆睡在客厅，感觉好久都没在电视上玩游戏了。。最近给奶奶爷爷租了个房我终于拿回了夜间客厅使用权。打开了尘封的PS5打算玩个画质好一点的游戏。

于是我便把苏打绿的演唱会专辑找来听，名为二十年一刻，倒是契合了四月的两趟一日游，Yosemite与Zion。

四月初临时要去加州出趟差。正事就是周三一个十分钟的pitch，加上前前后后的事情也就是半天而已。我犹豫了许久周四要不要冲一趟Yosemite，天天查天气看着降水概率在40%上下徘徊。最后心一横还是定了curry village的帐篷决定去一趟。这次离我上次去Yosemite已经有足足十年，从我第一次去算起则是十九年，也堪堪可以算得上二十年一刻了。

周四早上六点钟我就蹦起来开车出发。一路开下来满满的Deja Vu感，换高速吃早饭的黑熊diner还在那里，120限速10英里的九曲十八弯。进了公园我不由得大喊了一声Yosemite我回来了。

由于只有短短不到一整天的时间，我决定直奔公园里最具性价比的路线Mist Trail。七英里的路线就能近距离领略两大瀑布，还有身边都是彩虹的水雾部分，真是个老少皆宜的好trail。而且这个trail过去走过好几次，这次也是复现一下当年的情景。照片对比一下不由得感叹岁月不饶人。走完之后去Yosemite Fall转了一下也算致敬打卡。晚上小哈家正好也在公园里，还一起又吃了顿饭。

第二天早上天气阴晴不定，随时有雷雨的架势，我便果断打道回府了。毕竟还要赶下午的飞机。

四月中去Vegas参加Google Cloud的会。这个倒是提前半年就定好的。会议比想象的要好不少，Google近一年AI发展的势头不错于是整个会议也都搞得比较有声有色。之后我留了一天出来玩。本来想是不是去个附近的Fire Valley就得了。但既然刚去了Yosemite，就觉得还是要去个大的地方吧！于是就决定去一趟Zion。从Vegas开了两个多小时到Saint George住下。这个小城和Sedona感觉好像，也是很多红石和很多转盘 不过没有Sedona那么spiritual，更偏户外风一点。开到的时候已经是黄昏，我便随便去了城郊的Snow Canyon State Park，景色出乎意料的好。红色的岩壁下面有大片的黑色凝结岩浆。比较神奇的一点是trail的有些部分已经是走在人家房子的院墙篱笆外面了，小城的房子是可以修到公园里的吗？lol。走的trail最后是个蛮大的cove，可以俯瞰全城。晚上去吃了个小小fine dining，有点太甜。

在路上闲着没事发现可以在carplay里跟ChatGPT语音聊天，问了一通Zion的hiking推荐发现Zion有一片叫Kolob Canyon的部分我还没去过，便立马决定去这儿的一个trail了。这个trail说实话比较平平无奇，走到最后是看一个arch，然而那个arch高高在上的我走到头都没看到，继续在没有路的部分继续往上乱爬了一气，遇到一个德国人Hans，他指了一下我才看到。于是接下来回程便跟Hans同路，聊了快有俩小时AI，从fascinating到social impact，真的是没想到跑到这没什么人的山里还要聊AI。。

Metroid Prime 4 is such a masterpiece. I almost feel i have my 2026 game of the year already. Btw I looked up and figured games released in December are usually considered for awards of the next year.

At first I didn’t even realize Metroid Prime was its own series, separate from Metroid. I somehow thought it was a jump of Metroid series from 2D to 3D. Later I found there were three 3D Metroid Prime games on GameCube and Wii. And Metroid Prime 3 was released on 2007… no wonder I never heard of them. So this is a series revival after 18 years. And apparently this 4th-gen was originally developed by Bandai Namco, but was scrapped by Nintendo due to quality issues, and started over by Retro Studios. This backstory explained how the game seemed to make an attempt on open-world with an empty desert, but 99% of actual gameplays still happen in traditional mazes. Zelda made that breakthrough of blending “new abilities unlock new places” and open-world; I’m ok if Metroid doesn’t make that leap.

The graphics, music, and level design of Metroid Prime 4 is very very good. A first-person view brings a more immersive experience than the 2D game; and the sci-fi theme works great with the thrill brought by alien monsters and abandoned facilities. Other levels of lush forest, icy cave, and stormy towers also look stunning and make me want to stop and just stare at the view from time to time.

One thing I wondered was how the game works with the unique pointer control of Switch 2. I’ve seen people on Reddit said it worked great and “felt like the game was designed for that control”. But my own experience was rather disappointing. Metroid Prime 4 has auto-lock (by pressing L2), and has a few bosses that require you to aim “a bit off the center of auto-lock”, which seems to be designed for the Switch 2 control. I tried pointer and motion control, and eventually decided to turn both off and just use the most traditional right stick control. Maybe I’m just too used to the old-school control and less used to the motion/pointer way. The bosses were not hard in normal mode. I was able to beat almost all bosses within 3 tries, including the final boss. The only exception was the “fire dragon” which was a pretty great boss fight. Overall it’s a thrilling, smooth, and not over-challenging game experience. I loved it.

I think my earliest Metroid game was Metroid Fusion on 3DS. The core experience of exploring a huge maze with a detailed map was not new to me at that time as I played Castlevania before, but it was still fun. The most impressive part was how certain puzzles were designed. I remember some puzzles require solutions that are both hard to figure out and hard to execute. It could be a morph ball flying through several screens with precise jumping, transforming, and bombing. I remember having a feeling of achievement after solving some puzzles. Metroid Prime 4 has a lot of puzzles and some of them are clever. But none of the puzzles was sophisticated enough to make you feel “achieving”. It was more of a “huh this is clever” feeling. I think boss fights was a better part of Metroid Prime 4, compared to puzzles.

Overall I’ll give this game 8.5/10. Absolutely worth a try if you are ok with FPS game control on console, and want a sci-fi themed non-open-world Zelda-like experience, lol

First, I had a baby and became a dad. Wesley is 4 months old today. It’s amazing to watch him grow and become visibly different every month. Sometimes even a week can bring quite a change. I still think the current society puts a lot of influence into people’s mind about parenting and family values. It almost feels like everyone is supposed to love their kid with all their heart and time. But in reality… think about great people in history with a lot of kids, I don’t think they spent much time taking care of kids. Childcare is a labor intensive work no matter how you paint it… Don’t take me wrong. I really enjoy holding the little guy in arms and sharing time with him. Would I say “this is the best thing that ever happened to me” according to the “social convention”? I cannot say it wholeheartedly yet, lol.

Before the kid arrived, I did my travels. The month-long trip to Peru was an all-out adventure for me. Machu Picchu was awesome. And climbing a snow mountain felt like a good closure to my outdoorsy life. I did cry a bit at the peak to mourn the presumed ending of my lifestyle. In early August I did a weekend trip to Great Basin NP which was a nice little encore. Then it’s Phoenix for the baby.

At work, the AI coding advancement this year was remarkable. Claude Code completely changed how software development. I feel we are rethinking and relearning our own profession. It’s an exciting and scary moment.

Company grew to almost 50 people. It felt a bit of a grind. Business is growing, we are still looking for that sweet spot. A lot of hard work. Another feeling is the company is getting “large”. We fired people and had to go through PIP stuff, like we had HR breathing down our neck. I didn’t anticipate we needed to be so buttoned up at this stage, but whatever.

I basically gave up board games this year. Wen started playing a mobile game in a very addicted way. So when guests came over she barely came out to play anymore. And I’ve been playing Ark Nova on BGA so much that other games felt less interesting because of the depth difference, and playing Ark Nova with friends just became not that fun for me anymore given the experience difference. I probably played Ark Nova 1200+ games online. Then one day in Phoenix I decided this was too much and deleted my BGA account. I haven’t played any board game since.

I did keep video games as a hobby. It’s actually not hard to find time playing video games during the parental leave… or even afterwards. We have some childcare help (nanny and grandparents), and video games I play are on console and can be paired anytime. Here are the games I played this year:

• Metaphors Refantazio (PS5). After two action games I wanted to play a JRPG and found this one. Not bad. An alternative take to Persona games.
• Ghost of Totei (PS5). Nice graphics and actress performance. Very industrial. An ok game.
• Hades 2 (Switch 2). Great game. It’s funny it landed on consoles one year later than PC (early access) but I don’t really care about playing games on day 1 anymore.
• Octopath Travelers 2 (Switch 2). Nice relaxing game. Too relaxing so every time I play it I got really sleepy… didn’t finish.
• Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2). Wonderful game! Actually the first Donkey Kong game I played through. Lots of simple fun of smashing stuff. Almost like a 3D Mario game in a different flavor.
• Expedition 33 (PS5). Obvious choice for the game of the year. Solid on every front, with great innovations. A must-play for RPG funs this year.
• Split Fiction (PS5). A decent successor to the groundbreaking game It Takes Two. Though I feel It Takes Two was overrated,I think Split Fiction did a good job to inherit the core mechanism while making some extensions.
• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (PS5). Disappointed. Way worse than the previous one (Reborn). I think the creators stretched this trilogy way too long and lost steam.
• Balatro (iOS). Great mobile game. Worth a play.
• Monster Hunter Wilds (PS5). I really liked this generation of Monster Hunter. A comeback of MH World with a brave system change. My only problem is this gen was too short and had zero endgame content when it was released. Releasing remaining contents in several updates throughout a year just doesn’t give players the right experiences.

Amazon invoices conveniently tell you how much in an order was FSA eligible. I went through my orders in 2025 and exported a bunch of PDFs. Then I figured this might be a good opportunity to try out AI!

1st try: Claude Code + Claude Chrome extension

Prompt:

I have PDF invoices with FSA eligible expenses in “~/Downloads/fsa invoices” directory now, I also have the page https://justworks.optumfinancial.com/portal/CC/cdhportal/cdhclaims/paymyself open in chrome that you should be able to access. I want you to submit each PDF as a “Reimburse myself” type of claim Find the “FSA or HSA eligible” amount and the order date in the PDF

What was nice: Claude easily parsed all PDFs and pointed out there were 2 duplicated invoices so it will skip one of them.
What was difficult: Claude Code had a lot of trouble to work with Claude Chrome extension. It couldn’t take screenshot until I disabled all other Chrome extensions.
What broke: Claude Chrome extension could NOT upload files… it can click the “upload” button, but then politely ask me to select the file. What do I need you for??!

2nd try: ChatGPT Agent Mode

So I turned to ChatGPT. I initially want ChatGPT Mac desktop app to control my browser, but couldn’t even find that option. So I used ChatGPT’s “agent mode”, which runs everything on a remote virtual machine.

What was nice: ChatGPT could not read my local PDFs, but after I uploaded all PDF files, it easily parsed them and identified the duplicated invoices too.
What broke: ChatGPT app asked me to “take over” and log into the FSA site, but there is no “take over” button anywhere…. I spent a good 5 minutes to look up and down and couldn’t find that button. I searched reddit and found people reporting the same bug recently. I think OpenAI are shipping too much slop codes written by AI…

3rd try: Claude Desktop App

After some fiddling, I figured Claude desktop app can work with Claude Chrome extension too. You need to turn on a connector then select that connector in chat.

But it failed at the same issue: Claude Chrome extension cannot upload file… and I don’t want to sit around to select a file each time.

Also Claude Chrome extension was quite slow. It took almost a minute for it to find a button to click.

4th try: Claude Code + Good Old Playwright

This time it worked like a charm!

Playwright MCP can upload files, and it works much faster than Claude Chrome extension.

What’s nice is once Claude Code finished the first submission, it did the remaining much faster! It summarized what it did in the first try and wrote some badass playwright script to do the rest in that classic robot click speed 

So once this thing worked, 2 minutes later I had a dozen claims auto submitted. It was satisfying.

Now I’m looking forward to the next annual sexual harassment training….