Sheepy: A Short Adventure (2024) is a free game for Steam, and the Switch version is for $2. It is a very short, MV-adjacent game. Controller is recommended.

It can be said as a 2D platformer. It's partitioned into stages, so not at all a metroidvania. What's surprising is its atmosphere. Running in one area can be said as one of the most impressive scenes in metroidvania, if you ask me. (Sorry for saying MV and not-MV at the same time.)

It's free and it has flaws. Once or twice what to do is ambiguous. But believe me, it's 98% positive at Steam.

For Proton users: It's said that you have to unplug and re-plug for the controller to work. My several first tries didn't work, but once it was recognized, I didn't have to un/re-plug anymore.

I thank u/AssociateFun9966 for mentioning this lovely game.

I mean beating >!Calasmos!<, the one after completing three trials.

According the Steam stat, 95% of the players who beat the game reach Hero's Lv 99. (Compare 24% for >!"Echoes of an Elusive Age"!< and 22.8% for "Next-Level Luminary").

A fun fact is that for the OG, the non-11S version, the ratio is about 100%. On my Steam client screen, "Lv 99" is shown above "beating the game", both at 14.9%, while on the web page, "beat the game" is above "Lv 99".

The other days I finally beat the game at Lv 78 with "Super Strong Enemies", and I found this. First I wondered why, then I noticed most don't know to "do that" in order to >!lift the protection!<. Probably I had been spoiled about this.

Below is my personal situation: It was not necessary for me to grind at all except the end of Act 2, where I ground for an hour. So I have proceeded naturally. (On my first fight with "that one" I didn't remember "that" and thought I had to grind for days.) To go on, all I would do would be grinding and farming, and that'd be unbearable for me. I give up remaining post-postgame.

I'm still resisting uninstalling this game. I know I soon have to bid farewell to DQ11.

I'm finally in Act 3, and I decided to drop the draconian quest of "Reduced experience from easy fights". Act 3 requires you to be grindy, in particular when "All Enemies are Super Strong", so less exp doesn't make sense. (I don't think I've seen it in Acts 1 & 2, but in Act 3 you often get reduced experience. Previously (really) weak monsters gave no exp, and that's all IIRC).

# So this item does not matter at all in Acts 1 & 2, and it begins to annoy in Act 3.

Phew, I finally beat Phnom Nomh's boss in the 5th try. I've learned a bit, but the last time I was lucky and beat it easily. >!Few backups came, and Kaboomle echoes twice.!< Many mini-bosses still remain, and for the story I've only done >!Drustan's first trial!<.

Toripiyo (とりぴよ) is the composer of Monophobia (ものふぉびあ), added recently as the theme of Ghost Marija. I found his blog post about this track here, writing about his thoughts before, during, and after this work.

It's in Japanese, so use a translator.

# I did some more web search in Japanse, but I couldn't find any interesting post beyond two-line news "I wrote a song for Muse Dash".

Echo Generation: Midnight Edition (Official page Epic Steam) will be a next week Epicgames freebie, which is a "kind of" JRPG.

It's a 2024 turn-base, voxel RPG from a Canadadian indie studio Cococucumber. It's been rarely mentioned in this sub (at least once at here), but not few say it has a sure JRPG vibe. It's also available for Switch 1 and Xbox.

Hope this helps. Enjoy.

I like tracks composed by 3R2, a Taiwanese composer. (He and Triodust were main composers of Rabi-Ribi, a metroidvania game.)

# The level design by Howard_Y is actually what matters, I know. :p

I'd say Spring Carnival Lv 4 is more like Lv 3, but this is my first gold in the last 30 days, and my first Lv 4 one. I began MD last Sep, and have got only one Lv 3 gold.

Phew.

Want to play DQ10 Offline on Steam? Gonna use VPN? Then consider creating a secondary account.

With a Japanese account, you can buy:

• DQ10 Offline
• DQ11S Japanese version, which has 10-episode voice drama. (But the UI and subtitle is only in Japanese.)
• Devil May Cry 4 has Japanese voice

In fact, there's not much benefit, but there's some. Rather living in Japan is disadvantageous for Steam. See below.

With VPN use, you risk getting banned. (The risk is probably low. See below.) If it's in your secondary account, you won't lose the games in your main account.

Aaaand, if you already have DQ11S or DMC4, you can't buy the Japanese version any more for your primary account, because they are one, single, the same game.

---

VPN will be banned?

It is widely believed that you won't get banned by using VPN for the above examples. Steam does ban if you buy cheap keys for LatAm or CIS outside these regions.

Many retailers probably block VPN. Expect that VPN works only for Steam.

Disadvantages

About disadvantages of Japanese account (called omakuni): Japanese game publishers favor Sony and Nintendo, and often the PC version of their games can't be bought if you live in Japan. Today the omakuni habit is not so common than they used to be, but still you can't buy old omakuni-ed games.

Examples are: DQ Heroes 2, DQ11 OG, Digimon World, Castlevania Lords of Shadows Trilogy, Tales of Berseria (2017) etc.

In the last Humble Choice, Octopath Traveler II is excluded for Japanese residents! Japanese publishers often force geo-blocking to retailers.

Probably you know Japanese language is removed from many Japanese games. This is another form of omakuni.

In some titles Japanese is forced. Remember the JP ver of DQ11S doesn't have English. Final Fantasy 13 is an Eastern Asia version, with Japanese, Korean and (Traditional) Chinese with only Japanese voice. (English UI remains.)

Omakuni is very rare for new titles. For example the DQ11S and the Berseria remake (2026) are not omakuni. Surprisingly Bandai Namco excluded Japan for SPY×ANYA in 2024! (In the link, currency is set to Japanese yen, and it says "This item is currently unavailable in your region.")

This is a package (aka sub/key) of Octopath Traveler II, more specifically the sub 1370866, published by Square-Enix.

Why are these 14 countries special?

Edit Background:

This sub appeared in the latest (2026-06) Humble Choice, in which the treatment of Octopath Traveler II is this:

• Residents of Japan don't receive OT2. 1
• People in the above 14 countries except Japan are believed to get this key. 2
• The rest of the world (probably) gets a normal key. 2.

There's also a Latam key, which includes the above 5 Latam countries.

I don't use the "turn greats to perfect" character, but it hurts.

Ouch 😫 🤛

🤜 😖 Ouch

...Then I found the post "Played since Day 1 and yet only 10 Gold S" done 3 days ago. ;)

The track filter panel has the "history" button. It remembers your last 30 tracks.

I only play random tracks, and often I underwent: "Oops, what was the last track? I'd like to fav it but there's no way to know it any more!" I'm 55 hrs in and TIL this.

Perhaps many already know it but hoping this helps. Enjoy!