Writing about my gaming journey (game acquisitions, completions, reviews, etc) and anything else that strikes my fancy. Don't worry, my backlog is always growing so there will never be a shortage of things to talk about.
I’m back! You can’t get rid of me that easily. I said I’d try
maintaining the blog monthly and by God that’s what I’m gonna do. I also
decided to change up the format a little bit. It won’t be as noticeable here,
but I want to include a running year-to-date tally of all my stats. That means
that come February, I should have my usual game acquisitions, money spent, and
gametime for the month as well as graphs showing the year-to-date numbers. That
way it’ll be easier to see how each month compares. Let’s move on to game
acquisitions.
Game Acquisitions
Already out
the gate with some big purchases. Hopefully this isn’t indicative of the year
to come. Both Humble Bundle and Fanatical had good bundles last month that I
didn’t want to pass up. This is already rivaling my high spend months from
2025, but there are a lot of solid titles here as a result. I also had quite a
few successful Reddit trades and a handful of freebies from Amazon and Steam
family purchases.
# of Games: 52
Total Money Spent: $44.48
Price/Game: $0.91
Game Recaps
Expedition 33 decided to sneak its way
into 2026 with the release of the free Verso’s Drafts DLC. I was rusty but
still managed to complete the new area. The new enemies in the Endless Tower however,
absolutely not. I tried for a couple hours before giving up. I’m happy enough
knowing I 100% complete the base game and am still looking forward to their next
project. My friend and I also agreed that four playthroughs of Monster Prom 2
was enough. It was getting a little repetitive for me and we have plenty of
other games to get to. We started the third installment as well but decided to
play a quick horror game first as a sort of palate cleanser. We hadn’t played one of
those in a while. For my first streams, I decided
to play through Neon White. I played 20 hours over the course of four days to
beat it before it left Game Pass, including a seven and a half hour stretch on
the last day. Fun game, but I wouldn’t recommend neglecting your sleep schedule
to beat a game as fast as possible 😅 A couple
recent additions to the Game Pass catalog are the original two Final Fantasy
games. I’m already planning on playing through the series, and the Pixel
Remasters are some of the few I still haven’t purchased yet. I’m glad they
decided to go with the first ones since they’re the first games I was planning
on playing anyway according to my play order collection. I hope this means future
entries will come to the service. I managed to complete the first game, and the
second just released. I completed the first one and after
I finish my Archipelago randomizer of The Messenger with the HLTB community, I’ll move on to Final Fantasy II. Lastly, I managed
to complete Citizen Sleeper 2 right before midnight on the 31st when
it was scheduled to leave Game Pass. I technically beat the first game too, but
I wanted to keep playing that one to get more endings since I wasn't in a rush with
that one. As always, have some playlists of anything I played and recorded in
January. As part of my streaming push, reducing editing times, and because I
have a video backlog months long, I’ve decided to forgo the hour-long video
length and just upload the entire session at once. Please note that the first Final Fantasy video is going up on February 10th, Citizen Sleeper 1 on February 19th, and Citizen
Sleeper 2 on March 21st. Now
that I’m increasing the length of the videos, their frequency will eventually
reduce and be made public much closer to when they are recorded. I'll also throw up the playlist for Metaphor: ReFantazio since those videos are still trickling out.
Game Reviews
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
This is a party
game/visual novel where the goal is to court one of several humanoid monsters
(ghost, witch, demon, etc.) and eventually ask them out on a date to a meteor
shower at the end. The gameplay consists mostly of reading through absurd
scenarios involving the player character, love interests, and many side
characters, then making one of the two decisions that you think the love
interest will like. Each player (up to four) gets two scenarios per week with
the number of weeks determined by which length game you decided to play (short
is two, medium is three, and full is five). At the end of the two scenarios,
everyone gets to choose someone to sit next to at a campfire to have another
chat, then pick an alcoholic drink that affects the game in different ways like
changing your stats or unlocking new scenarios. At the end of the last week,
instead of the fireside chat and drinking, each player chooses who they want to
ask to the meteor shower and is either successful or rejected based on how well
they did. Player order at the beginning of each week is determined by the game
telling you to do something like think of an animal, say the animal out loud,
then deliberate amongst everyone on which animal would be the most dangerous if
given opposable thumbs.
The game is
very raunchy, with curse words and sexual references everywhere. This is
certainly not made to be played around children, although there are options in
the menu to dial it back. While I enjoyed every scenario the game presented,
the repetition set in pretty quickly. For reference, I played one full, one
medium, and two short games. At the beginning of your turn, you pick one of
only five locations to go to, read the scenario presented to you, and make one
of two choices. The same scenarios popped up more than once, and the minigame
to decide who goes first only seemed to have less than a dozen variants. On top
of that, everyone has five different stats that go up or down depending on the
choices you make and the drinks you drink (smarts, boldness, creativity, charm,
and fun). However, not only is it usually not possible to know which choice is
the correct one to woo your love interest, but the stats themselves didn’t seem
to make any difference. I’m sure they affect the endings somewhat, but I couldn’t
tell how. This led to a fairly shallow experience filled with a little too much
randomness.
Monster Prom 2
is clearly designed to be played multiple times. After all, a party game
wouldn’t provide much value if you could only play it once before having to
move on to something else. As such, it provides several scenarios including 25
secret endings and 1,196 total outcomes! In the four games I played, I found
three of the secret endings and saw 60 outcomes. Given the randomness mentioned
earlier, combined with how long each game takes to play, I don’t know how it’s
possible for anyone to get every outcome. Even if there was a guide somewhere
on every correct decision, the amount of time it would take to see everything
would far exceed the amount of time before boredom sets in. I was ready to call
it quits after the four games I played, and it would take at least hundreds to
see everything. As such, I recommend going into this game with the only goal
being having fun with friends and throw the completionist mindset out the
window. I did have fun with this game and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys
making dirty jokes with their friends, but don’t expect anything deeper than
that.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 9h:11m Rating – 6/10
Neon White
Neon White is a
fast-paced first-person shooter/platformer where the goal in each level is to
kill all the demons and make it to the end as quickly as possible. The setup is
there are a class of people called Neons that were sent to Hell for being
sinners in life but have been called upon to Heaven by the Believers to
eradicate a growing demonic threat in the form of a competition. As a reward,
the top competitors get to temporarily enjoy Heaven’s amenities before being
sent back to try again next year. You are one such Neon, the titular Neon
White, and you meet up with your old companions in life Red, Yellow, Violet,
and Green. You wake up in Heaven with no memory and over the course of the
story slowly remember your old life, your companions, how you were all killed,
and why you were sent to Hell in the first place.
The game follows a
mission-based structure. Each mission consists of a set of similarly themed
levels that must be completed in order before moving on to the next one. Once
you complete a mission, you’re taken to a hub area where you get your next
mission assignment, converse with your companions, and complete side quests
with them if you found their optional gift collectible in the levels. When
you’re in a level, you are equipped with weapons called soul cards. Each soul
card has a primary ability (the gun part) and a secondary ability (a movement
ability). You can have two soul card types equipped at a time, with up to a
stack of three of each type. When you fire the gun, the ammo goes down by one
until you run out, then the card is removed. However, when you discard a card
manually, you activate the movement ability. For example, you can use a
standard handgun card to fire low damage handgun rounds, but discarding the
card immediately performs a double jump. Soul cards are found throughout each
level and nothing carries over from level to level. You must use a combination
of ammo and movement abilities to quickly dispatch the enemies and make it to
the end as fast as possible. You are awarded a bronze, silver, gold, or apex
medal depending on your time, and higher medals further increase your Neon rank
(necessary to progress the main story) and reveal secrets such as the
aforementioned gift collectibles and hints on how to achieve faster times.
As you can tell,
this game was designed to be a speedrunner’s dream. I normally don’t care at
all about speedrunning and am happy to meet the minimum requirements to proceed
in a game, but I admit the game hooked me enough to want to achieve the gold or
apex medals on every level. The gameplay loop is addicting, and being able to
memorize each level after a few attempts and zooming through them at breakneck
speed was always satisfying. The closest games I can compare this to are
Mirror’s Edge or more recently Mullet Madjack. I liked the aesthetics of Mullet
Madjack much more than Neon White, as the art style/graphics of the latter are
nothing to write home about. Furthermore, there were some cringy and/or
fanservicey cutscenes that I felt took away from the somewhat serious story the
game was trying to tell. That being said, I still enjoyed the overall story and
a handful of characters. The music was catchy as well, and the sound design was
on point. And of course, most importantly, the game is very fun to play. If you
can get past the anime style and lackluster story delivery and enjoy first
person shooters or platformers, I think this game is well worth picking up.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 20h:27m Rating – 8.5/10
Code Alkonost:
Awakening of Evil
This is the worst
game I’ve reviewed yet! Code Alkonost is a horror game with puzzle elements
that draws heavily from Slavic mythology. You play a woman who is tasked with
finding her sister after she goes missing while the two of them are making
their regular offering to an idol. You quickly find yourself pursued by a
soldier in full armor who mistakes you for a demon and punches you twice in the
head and stabs you. You’re fine though somehow and wake up in the soldier’s
house where he explains that he’s possessed when he leaves the house and will
always mistake you for an enemy and try to kill you. You’re given an amulet
that turns you invisible for a few seconds and sent on your way through six
different areas where you must avoid a couple monsters (one of which is only
encountered during a very short sequence), solve a couple puzzles, and fight
the same boss a couple times where the mechanics/strategy don’t change at all.
In case it wasn’t
clear, this game is very bad. The graphics are bad, especially for an Unreal
Engine 5 game. The tutorial menu spoils scenes in the game because each one is
hyper specific to the scenario the mechanic pops up in instead of being
generalized. The music decides to randomly cut out for no reason. The voiceover
is possibly the worst I’ve ever heard in a game, and the developers state that
at least some of them are AI generated, which is obvious. The sound levels
aren’t consistent at all, with some voices being muffled one sentence while
much louder and clearer the next. The story makes very little sense and
suddenly ends with a cliffhanger which may or may not ever be resolved. The
enemy, puzzle, item, and environmental variety are all lacking. Sometimes the
sprint straight up doesn’t work or will stop working even when there is plenty
of stamina bar left. It employs cheap jumpscares instead of proper horror. The
only positive things I can say about this game are that it ran fine, the skull
puzzle was kinda fun to solve, and the two identical boss battles were slightly
engaging and a much-needed break in the monotony of just walking around trying
to figure out where I was supposed to be going. Avoid this at all costs, there
are no redeeming qualities here.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 2h:45m Rating – 2.5/10
FINAL FANTASY
I don’t think Final
Fantasy needs any introduction, it is one of the most well-known and longest
running JRPG series around. I’ve never played a proper Final Fantasy game
before so I’m unable to compare it to other entries. On its own, I found it to
be a competent if dated game which makes sense given the original came out all
the way back in 1987. I played the Pixel Remaster version released in 2021 with
some much-needed modern quality of life improvements. The graphical
enhancements are nice of course, but there are also now maps for every area for
easier navigation, up to 4X XP and money boosts to lessen or eliminate the
grind (which I didn’t utilize), quick saving anywhere, and the option to turn
encounters off and on whenever you want. I thought these all did a good job to
make the nearly 40-year-old game palatable for modern audiences, but it didn’t
solve everything.
The biggest issue I
have with this game is that it’s still obscure about where it wants you to go
and what to do next. I found myself multiple times looking up a guide to figure
out the next step, even after sailing around the entire world trying to figure
it out myself. Almost every time, the answer was not something I recall ever
reading about while playing which makes me wonder how I could’ve come to it
otherwise. The story is my next biggest gripe in the sense that it’s basically
non-existent. This was again typical for the time, and the fact that there was
any story at all still places it above most other games back then. It’s just
unfortunate that it was almost all told in an exposition dump in a text crawl
at the end after defeating the final boss. The combat was a mixed bag. I
struggled a little bit at the beginning which was fine while I was coming to
grips with how it works. However, most of the game was stupidly easy and I
found myself mindlessly fast-forwarding through most fights using just the basic
attack. Then, the final boss suddenly appeared (I didn’t know I was already at
the end) and completely wrecked me. The difficulty spike is insane and just
like that, I was unprepared. A more gradual difficulty curve would’ve been
appreciated.
Despite these
negatives, I still overall enjoyed my time with the game. The combat, while
simplistic, was still enjoyable to partake in and highlighted each classes’
strengths and weaknesses well. I was always intrigued whenever a new monster
popped up so I could see how it fights. The world, while barren and not fully
fleshed out, was still interesting to explore in spots. I liked the mini
stories each town had to tell. I can see how the game laid the groundwork for
future entries, and I’m excited to watch the series evolve as I slowly work my
way through. I recommend this to any turn-based RPG lover who isn’t immediately
put off by some of the more dated elements of an otherwise good game. I think
the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy I is a valid starting point for
getting into the series.
Time to beat
(Completionist) - 16h:50m Rating – 6.5/10
Citizen Sleeper 2
Citizen Sleeper 2 is
an interesting RPG/visual novel hybrid about an android with an emulated human
mind (known as a sleeper) who is woken up prematurely from a reboot and
immediately goes on the run from their evil former employer who caused the interruption.
Unlike the first game which takes place on a single space station, the sequel
allows you to jump from station to station and even go on contracts to
asteroids and old shipwrecks. The gameplay loop consists of rolling six d6 dice
which serve as the number of actions you can take on any given day (called
cycles). Actions vary depending on where you are but typically involve working
for money (called cryo), reducing stress, or completing a sequence of events to
finish a contract. The higher number die you decide to use to complete an
action, the higher your chance of success. There is a whole resource management
aspect to the game as well which involves managing fuel for travel, energy
which can increase stress when depleted, stress itself which can break dice
slots while on a contract, and supplies which dictate how many cycles you get
while on a contract and act as a backup energy source.
This all might sound
complicated at first, but most of the game is just reading. You start on one
station and explore everything you can do on that station, slot your dice next
to any action you want to take, read what the results of that action are,
complete the contract around that station if you want, then move on to the next
station and repeat. Despite having played the first game, I was confused by the
stress mechanic and breaking dice since they are new additions, as well as the
multitude of items you can collect like scrap and engine components. By the end
of the game though, I was able to zoom from station to station basically at
will and was able to get through cycles very quickly. Another neat addition to
this game are the crewmates that you can take with you on contracts that have
two of their own dice each that you can make use of. You and your crewmates
make use of five different skills (endure, engineer, interface, engage, and
intuit). Depending on which class you pick at the start of the game (out of
three options), you will have one skill that is boosted +1, two that are +0,
one that is -2, and one that is locked off from upgrading completely which
gives a permanent -2. Each crewmate will have either two skills that are +0 or
one skill that is +1 which makes you think about party composition when
deciding who you want to take with you to complete contracts.
Speaking of, I have
a problem with how contracts work in this game. While they are a fun addition,
they never stopped being stressful. I ended up dying on the first contract of
the game because I didn’t understand how the stress and broken dice systems
worked. Failing actions on a contract will increase you stress level. Depending
on how high your stress is, certain dice rolls will cause that die to take damage
every time they’re rolled. When a die takes three points of damage, it breaks, effectively
reducing the number of actions you can take per cycle by one. When all your
dice break, you die. When you die, you earn a permanent glitch which guarantees
that one of your dice will only have a 20% chance of success. This is a pretty
egregious handicap that can snowball, and one I held for most of the game due
to a poor explanation of the game mechanics. Even in the latter half of the
game when my character was mostly upgraded and I had a firm grasp on how
everything worked, there were still some contracts I failed either because they
were near-impossible without perfect strategy or I just had bad RNG. I was
still able to complete the game so contracts weren’t strictly mandatory, but
failing missions never feels good, especially when it’s out of your hands.
Despite my
misgivings about some of the new mechanics, I still enjoyed my time with the
game. The story and characters continued to be the main draw of the experience.
Meeting new characters and learning about their personalities and struggles was
always the highlight of visiting any new station. Music and sound design were
minimal, but I felt that only added to the sense of loneliness in the vastness
of empty space. Getting a bunch of good dice rolls at the beginning of a cycle
always felt great, and even getting bad rolls wasn’t necessarily a failure once
I got some upgrades. If you enjoy reading a good sci-fi story, I think I can
recommend this one. While not strictly necessary, I recommend playing the first
game first. The mechanics are simpler to understand and it establishes the
world and lore. There are even some returning characters and a couple
references to the original.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 16h:32m Rating – 8/10
Conclusion/Upcoming
As you can see, I removed the TV and movie recap section
from my posts. I felt that it only detracted from the gaming focus of the blog,
and I didn’t feel as “qualified” to talk about them if that makes any sense. I
still enjoy TV and movies and watch them regularly, but gaming is my main hobby
and I feel that I have more to say about them. I also had the idea while writing this that I could tweak the thumbnails I use for YouTube to make specialized blog review pictures, but I unfortunately deleted a couple photoshop files before I had the chance to do it with everything. I'll try to be more consistent with the pictures next month. With that out of the way, I just
wanted to say that it’s nice that I can already mark some completions for the
year. There were several months in 2025 where I didn’t beat anything and I
would rather not repeat that. My backlog will never go down otherwise. It
doesn’t help that my time played for the month was the lowest since September,
but I was busy setting up streaming stuff and took an unexpected mini-vacation
so I have some excuse. My plan for February as mentioned in the game recap section is to finish up The Messenger randomizer and play through Final Fantasy
II. If I manage that before Final Fantasy III comes to Game Pass (if it ever
does), I’ll move on to the highest rated Game Pass title on my list which is
Little Rocket Lab. I imagine Final Fantasy II and Little Rocket Lab together will take me more than a
month to get through. Hooray longer games! Thanks for coming
back to my newly renovated and now monthly blog. See you all again next month!
This is it, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. At
least, this is the moment I’ve really been looking forward to and one of the
main reasons why I started this blog in the first place. My goal was to see how
much money I spend on games, how many games I get for that amount of money, and
how many hours I sink into my gaming hobby. I’ve been meticulously tracking all
of this in a spreadsheet (and my HowLongToBeat profile of
course) and will share all of that below. This post will start with my
acquisitions, game recaps, and TV/Movie recaps as usual. Afterwards, I will post
all the graphs showing my playtime and money spent, just like my quarterly
posts. Then, I will list my top 10 games I completed in 2025 with my reviews of
each. Lastly, I will wrap up with the conclusion and what’s next for me on my
gaming journey. Strap in, this is gonna be a long one!
Game Acquisitions
Holy moly,
that is a lot of games. I knew I got a lot of games every year but seeing it in
one picture like this is just staggering. I must’ve spent a fortune to get all
of these, right? Surprisingly, these hundreds of games only cost the equivalent of about
five full-price AAA titles. Between the numerous bundles, giveaways, freebies,
and Steam family purchases, I saved a ton of money. Of course, I could’ve not
bought anything and still had a large enough backlog to cover my gaming needs
for several years, but where’s the fun in that? I like to think that most of
these games will be at least somewhat enjoyable and this is likely one of if
not the best prices they’ll be offered at. It’s going to be tough to go through
this entire list and pick out some highlights that I’m particularly excited
about. I’ll just skim through and pick out ones that look familiar that stand
out to me as something I’m looking forward to:
# of Games: 616
Total Money Spent: $333.58
Price/Game: $0.54
Game Recaps
It looks like four long RPGs made up over
80% of my 396 hours and nine minutes of playtime for the year, with a
sprinkling of smaller titles to round it out. There were a couple of stinkers
in here with Lunar Axe and Slayers X, but for the most part, I enjoyed
everything here. I still need to get back to Torment: Tides of Numenera at some
point. Metaphor: ReFantazio was completed with only 45 minutes left in the year
and made up 30% of my total playtime, which is especially impressive considering
I beat it in only a month and a half. I don’t want to get any more detailed on
my thoughts for each game, that’s what the top 10 below is for! Here are
playlists of every game I played and recorded if you want to check them out:
TV/Movie Recaps
Here is everything I watched last year:
·American Dad Season 21 Episodes 10-22 (all
caught up, show ongoing)
·FLCL Season 1 Episode 1-Season 5 Episode 3
(complete)
·Firefly Season 1 Episode 1-11 (complete)
·Helluva Boss Season 2 Episodes 12-13 (still
watching, show ongoing)
·Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Season 1 Episodes 1-8
(complete)
·Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
Season 2 Episodes 1-12 (complete?)
·Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Season 1 Episodes 1-8
(complete?)
·Skull Island Season 1 Episodes 1-8 (complete)
·Cowboy Bebop Season 1 Episodes 1-26 (complete)
·Family Guy Season 23 Episodes 1-18 (all caught
up, show ongoing)
·Snowpiercer Season 1 Episode 1-Season 4 Episode
10 (complete)
·Shadow and Bone Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2
Episode 8 (complete)
·My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 2 Episode
1-Season 4 Episode 4 (complete)
·Black Mirror Season 7 Episodes 1-6 (all caught
up, show ongoing)
·Arcane Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2 Episode 9
(complete)
·Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix Season 1
Episodes 1-6 (complete)
·Star Wars: Andor Season 2 Episodes 1-12
(complete)
·The Last of Us Season 2 Episodes 1-7 (all caught
up, show ongoing)
·Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 Episodes 1-9 (all
caught up, show ongoing)
·Tales from the Loop Season 1 Episodes 1-8
(complete)
·Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Season 1
Episode 1-Season 2 Episode 26 (complete)
·Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Season 1 Episode
1-Season 2 Episode 12 (complete)
·Ironheart Season 1 Episodes 1-6 (complete)
·Eyes of Wakanda Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (complete)
·Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld Season 1
Episodes 1-6 (complete)
·Raised by Wolves Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2
Episode 8 (complete)
·LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – Pieces of
the Past Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (complete)
·Marvel Zombies Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (complete?)
·Alien: Earth Season 1 Episodes 1-8 (all caught
up, show ongoing)
·Futurama Season 10 Episodes 1-10 (all caught up,
show ongoing)
·Splinter Cell: Deathwatch Season 1 Episodes 1-8
(all caught up, show ongoing)
·Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-8 (all caught up, show
ongoing)
·Tales of Phantasia: The Animation Season 1
Episodes 1-4 (complete)
·Berserk 1997 Season 1 Episodes 1-25 (complete)
·Berserk: The Golden Age Arc – Memorial Edition
Season 1 Episodes 1-13 (complete)
·Berserk 2016 Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2 Episode
12 (complete)
·Star Wars: Visions Season 3 Episodes 1-9
(complete)
·Blue Submarine No. 6 Season 1 Episodes 1-4
(complete)
·Record of Lodoss War Season 1 Episodes 1-13
(complete)
·Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic
Knight Season 1 Episodes 1-27
·Barton Fink
·Rushmore
·Barefoot Gen 1-2
·Serenity
·The Boy and the Heron
·Stardust
·Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
·The Fifth Element
·Dark City
·Close Encounters of the Third Kind
·Trainspotting 1-2
·Moana 1-2
·Sonic the Hedgehog 3
·Red vs. Blue: Restoration
·Planet of the Apes
·Rise of the Planet of the Apes
·Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
·War for the Planet of the Apes
·Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
·Dog Man
·Mickey 17
·The Boondock Saints
·11:14
·Ghost in the Shell
·Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
·Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – Solid
State Society
·Ghost in the Shell: Arise – Borders 1-5
·Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie
·Harry Potter 1-7
·Jurassic World Rebirth
·Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
·Happy Gilmore 1-2
·Pitch Black
·The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury
·The Chronicles of Riddick
·Riddick
·28 Years Later
·Barbarian
·Demolition Man
·Ballerina
·Nobody 2
·The Accountant 1-2
·The Truman Show
·King Kong
·Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
This looks absolutely absurd when written out like this. It
seems I watched a lot of movies and TV shows last year, way more than games
played. That’s not TOO surprising though, games are a much bigger time
commitment. There was a lot of sci-fi and anime here which came as no surprise.
I’ve already written my thoughts on everything here, so I don’t want to
overshadow the gaming portion of my gaming blog by reiterating them here.
Picking a favorite TV show out of this huge list is difficult, but I think I might
give it to Arcane. It’s crazy to think that I was planning on skipping it since
I never played the League of Legends game it’s based on. I’m glad I didn’t
though, it’s definitely not necessary to be familiar with the source material
before diving in. The animation, writing, and characters are top-notch. I hope
the creators can tell more stories in this universe. Picking a favorite movie
is even more difficult since I don’t exactly remember a lot of them and some of
them tend to blend together. The Boy and the Heron, Stardust, Moana, Planet of
the Apes, Dog Man, Harry Potter, Demolition Man, Ballerina, The Accountant, The
Truman Show, and Mission: Impossible were all enjoyable.
Stats
Individually, the acquisitions and game recap sections above
showed the numbers I was curious about when starting the blog. Let’s break the
data down even further by week and month, starting with money spent and games
acquired:
I was curious to see if the amount of money I spent
correlated with how many games I got and the answer is…kind of but not really.
This makes sense since there were some bundles that gave me a ton of games for
a low price, some games I got for free, and others I paid a lot more for a
single game. You can really see this reflected in March when I got a ton of
games for relatively little and August where I got a decent number of games,
but they were all free. It’s satisfying seeing how close the two graphs get
though in January, May, July, October, and December though. It’s like the data
was trying really hard to line up and just couldn’t do it. Next up, let’s look
at my hours played:
I love how you can easily see what months I’m subscribed to
Game Pass in these graphs. The year started off OK with me getting my footing
with writing and playing at the same time. Then I had a two-week trial of Game
Pass in May which caused my playtime to surge as I tried to get as much
playtime in as possible. After that, I decided I wanted to go back and play
older games that I missed growing up when I wasn’t allowed to play video games.
That’s when I really dove deep into learning about emulation and cataloging all
the retro games I wanted to play. This caused my playtime to bottom out
June-September with only the occasional co-op session to keep the gaming going.
Then I discovered Microsoft Rewards which allows me to extend my subscription
indefinitely for free (for now) and jumped right back into gaming again. I love
how I’m able to maintain 70+ hours/month while also writing for the blog and
editing for the YouTube channel. It makes me wonder if I’d be able to hit 100
hours in a month if I wasn’t doing all that stuff. I wish I had detailed stats
to compare from previous years, but I imagine my playtime was much reduced in
2025. I’ll continue tracking my playtime though so I should have better
comparisons next year!
Top 10
If you keep up with my top 10 collection on HLTB,
none of this will be news to you. I decided to keep my top 10 games collections
updated as I completed games as well as wrote reviews for games I just finished
before moving on to the next game. That, combined with the drastically lower
number of completions this year, will make writing this section much easier
than it was in previous years. So, without further ado, here are my top 10
games I completed in 2025:
10. Little Kitty, Big City (Main+Extras 4h:43m) – 7/10
Little Kitty, Big City is a short and sweet open world
adventure game about a cat that falls off their favorite sleeping spot on a high-rise
balcony to the streets below and has to find their way back up. Along the way,
they meet various other animals they can talk to through text bubbles that can
either help the cat on their journey or ask for help with their own problems.
The gameplay consists of wandering around the city by climbing and jumping on
stuff, talking to animals for some side quests, and collecting fish to increase
your stamina to climb even higher so you can get back home. The game is very
short and simple and there is no combat to speak of. The money you get in the
form of shinies is only used for the first stamina upgrade and optional hats
with no gameplay benefits, so it can largely be ignored.
What this game lacks in gameplay and story, it makes up for in charm. It’s just
a really cute game, and the animals you meet along the way have their own fun
personality quirks and activities to do. You meet a tanuki that unlocks the
“Petwork” fast travel system, a dog who has misplaced his favorite tennis
balls, and a daddy duck who seems to have misplaced his children…again. Most of
the interactions are optional, but then you’re missing the point of the game by
not engaging with them. My other complaint besides the simplicity was using the
map to find collectibles. Again, this is totally optional, but I spent way too
much time trying to find some collectibles that appeared to be right next to me
on the map but ended up being way above me on a rooftop or tucked behind a
fence I couldn’t figure out how to get through. Still, if you like cats and
don’t mind a short game without a lot of meat on its bones, you probably can’t
go wrong with this one.
9. Road 96 (Completionist 8h:28m) – 7/10
Road 96 is a story-driven adventure game about a group of
kids attempting to flee their country that is ruled by a tyrannical government.
The gameplay consists almost entirely of walking through a handful of ~15
minute scenarios where you talk to people, pick some dialogue choices to affect
the ending you get, then choose how much stamina you want to spend by picking a
mode of transportation to get to the next scenario. You can gamble and hope
that you get enough money or find enough food to keep your stamina up to keep
going. The dialogue choices are mainly split between just wanting to flee the
country with minimal conflict, encouraging voting for the opposition leader in
the upcoming election, or starting a revolution. After a handful of these
scenarios, you arrive at the border, pick how you want to try to escape, then
start over with a new character. After six of these runs (or more if you fail
to many times from what I’ve read), you then make the ultimate choice of
fleeing or staying to fight and watch how that plays out with the ending you
worked towards through various conversations.
A game like this hinges almost entirely on its story,
characters, and presentation, and I don’t think it fully pulled it off. The
graphics aren’t the best, which is fine. It went for a more cartoony art style
despite the darker subject matter which looked OK. Some of the vocal
performances were just bad though, like Jarod the murderous taxi driver with
anger management issues. The animations were just OK, and every run ended with
the same two scenarios with only slight changes which led to repetition. This
is definitely not as well-written or character focused as something like Life
is Strange despite seemingly wanting to be, but I still enjoyed it enough to
get all the achievements which is worth something. If you’re looking for a
simple walking simulator with a politics-heavy story and can get over some of
the mediocre writing and voice acting, you’ll probably find something to enjoy
here.
8. Fall of Porcupine (Main+Extras 14h:41m) – 7/10
Fall of Porcupine is a story-driven game starring Finley, a
bird who has just moved to a new town to work at the hospital as a junior
doctor. The gameplay consists of talking to other anthropomorphic animals at
the hospital and around town as well as little mini-games when treating
patients at the hospital. It is a very simple gameplay loop. There’s a setting
to make the mini-games even easier but considering that how well you do at them
doesn’t seem to affect the story, I’m not sure it matters.
I thought the story in this game was just OK. It starts off fairly strong as
you meet all the characters and explore the town, but it doesn’t really expand
beyond that. There’s a turn-based bar fight as well as a festival partway
through where you can talk to people in a certain order to get a special item
which mixes things up a little bit. It also escalates at the end, but then just
abruptly ends with little resolution.
The gameplay is about as simple as it gets. Anyone looking for a game that’s
mechanically engaging should look elsewhere; this is definitely story-driven
first and everything else second. Technically speaking, there was a minor bug
with the phone where when you tried to scroll up to read the latest text
message, it would jump to the bottom making it nearly impossible to select it.
The text messages are very few and far between though, so this did not really
affect the game.
I played this one with a friend who works in healthcare, and we voiced the
characters. I felt that this escalated my experience of the game over if I had
just played it by myself. I likely would have been pretty bored by the end if
this was a solo experience. Still, if you’re looking for a story-based game
with some heavy themes mixed with light-hearted humor and simple gameplay, give
this one a shot.
7. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (Completionist 7h:22m) – 7.5/10
The follow-up to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, Turnip Boy
Robs a Bank decided to switch it up a bit by turning the action-adventure game
into a roguelite with an emphasis on guns and bullet hell boss fights. Does the
genre pivot work? I’d say for the most part it does, although it’s not one I
would’ve preferred and it runs into the same pitfalls as other
roguelike/roguelite games. After the revelation about his family history in the
first game, Turnip Boy is recruited by the mob to break into the bank and make
off with a rival mob boss’ money. There are two areas in this game: the bank
itself which you have limited time to explore each run and the mob HQ you go to
between runs to buy upgrades, unlock weapons, and talk to your companions for
small story tidbits. The main floor of the bank is broken off into sections
behind locked doors that you need various keycards to unlock. Each boss drops a
keycard that unlocks the next area of the bank. There are also randomized
elevators in various spots of the bank that lead to different rooms such as
offices with vaults to break into, a sad muffin that wants to complete his rock
collection, and even Hell itself ruled by a familiar face from the first game.
As you can see by my completion time, the developer’s succeeded in extending
the runtime of this game through the various unlocks and randomized rooms. I
would say that while the game didn’t overstay its welcome, the runs did start
getting pretty repetitive which is the major roguelite pitfall I alluded to
earlier. After a while, I felt that I was just going through the motions run to
run hoping to encounter the right elevator I needed to complete one of the many
side quests this game offers. There’s a certain story point about 75% of the
way through that makes money totally meaningless going forward so subsequent
runs were all about hoping to get the right elevators and taking down the four
main bosses. I enjoyed the game, but it didn’t feel as tight knit as the first
with a story that wasn’t as interesting. The developer has announced the third
game in the series, which is pivoting to an endless runner, so they aren’t
shying away from yet another genre shift so if you’re looking to get into the
series, don’t expect every game to feel the same. There’s also an easy mode
which should help with the bosses so don’t be put off by the bullet hell
mechanics.
6. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Completionist
2h:56m) – 8/10
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a silly and short action-adventure
game starring the titular Turnip Boy as he runs around town doing errands for
Mayor Onion to make up for not paying property taxes on his home. The premise
is just as silly as it sounds. The game consists of talking to the other
sentient plants, solving some light puzzles, and engaging in surprisingly
competent combat. The game is on the easy side for the most part, although I
struggled a bit with the boss fight in the bunker. The story takes a
surprisingly dark twist near the end, much more than I was expecting given the
goofy tone up to that point. Nothing that would make it inappropriate for
children, just a little more interesting than I was anticipating. There is a
sort of roguelite mode on board an endless train that you get access to after
beating the main game, but it felt very tacked on and unnecessary. The
collectibles were mostly easy to find. I only had to look up a guide for a
couple to get the true ending. I did beat the game in one sitting so it was
very short, but I had a blast pretty much the whole time. Pick this up if
you're looking for a goofy and colorful game that still manages to have decent
combat and story elements.
5. Tales of Phantasia (Main+Extras 58h:24m) – 8/10
Tales of Phantasia is the first game in a long running
series of JRPGs published by Bandai Namco. It follows a group of young heroes
whose world is threatened by a powerful being known as Dhaos. After losing
their first battle against him, the main character Cless is sent back to the
past before Dhaos was considered all-powerful to recruit the aforementioned
heroes and learn the magic needed to stop him once and for all.
In contrast to most RPGs of the time (the original game came out on the SNES in
1995, although I played the PS1 remake released in 1998), the combat is played
out in real-time instead of being turn-based. I’m normally more of a turn-based
fan so I was initially hesitant about the combat system, but I quickly found
that my fears were unfounded. Combat feels very good in this game, especially
with a co-op partner to help out instead of relying exclusively on the AI.
Every character has a basic slash and thrust attack, as well as being able to
assign four spells or abilities known in this series as artes. These can range
wildly from a simple upward sword thrust to summoning a fire spirit to a
devastating meteor storm. For the AI party members, you can deselect artes you
don’t want them to use as well as alter their behavior to be more aggressive,
defensive, or focus on support or healing. You can also pause the battle to
select specific artes you want them to perform or use items. It was all very
intimidating at first, but you really get in the groove with it after a while.
After defeating the first boss at the end of the first dungeon in the jail
cells, I felt more confident in my ability to make it through the game.
Besides the real-time combat, the rest of the game has all the standard RPG
tropes that were long established before even this came out. You wander from
town to town fighting monsters along the way, buy items and equipment from
various shops, talk to NPCs to get quests, then fight through a dungeon to get
something needed to advance the story and repeat. This might sound like I’m knocking
on the game, but this flow is one of the things I like most about RPGs. The
story is serviceable, and the villain is pretty one note until the very end.
The characters are a highlight though, and the skits you can watch with them
after every story beat were always enjoyable.
My biggest problems with this game probably just come down to age. There were
many modern conveniences that are missing which is understandable since it’s a
game from the 90s. There is no quest log, so good luck trying to remember
everything every NPC told you unless you want to write it down. There is a
world map that marks your location and the major towns, which is nice, but
there is no indication of where you’re supposed to go on it. There is no
minimap and it’s very easy to get lost in the many dungeons in the game. A lot
of the puzzles or paths forward were very unclear, and I found myself multiple
times having to look up what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go
next. The graphics are mostly 2D sprite work with a 3D overworld and some spell
effects. The overworld looked pretty bland which makes sense given the hardware
it had to work with, but everything else looked pretty good. The game also
started feeling like it was dragging towards the end, but that’s pretty typical
for games of this length that don’t stray from the formula too much.
In the grand scheme of things, these are nitpicks in an overall great JRPG of
the era. It was made even more fun with the addition of a co-op partner. I
imagine the game would’ve been somewhat less enjoyable without voicing all the
characters together and having to micromanage the party members in combat. If
you’re interested in JRPGs and are not intimidated by the age or real-time
combat, I would say this game still holds up today and is an easy
recommendation. Just try to play the PS1 version with the fan translation patch
as it is superior to the SNES and GBA versions.
4. Mullet Madjack
(Main+Extras 5h:29m) – 8.5/10
Mullet Madjack is a super-fast paced FPS with some roguelite
elements and looks straight out of an 80s anime. The game takes place in a
dystopian future where robot billionaires have taken over the world and the
primary form of entertainment is watching streamers literally put their lives
on the line by hooking engagement directly into their bloodstream and dying if
they aren’t putting on a good show. That’s all just interesting worldbuilding
to explain how the health system works which I’ll get to later. The main plot
is that the most popular streamer has been kidnapped by one of the robot
billionaires so one of the employees at the streaming company is tasked with
finding someone who looks capable and entertaining enough to save her. She
finds the titular Mullet Madjack, a muscular dude with cool shades and an even
cooler car for the job and recruits him. After a brief video call where she
explains basically everything I just did, he arrives at the skyscraper the
streamer is being held hostage at and has to fight through 82 floors to save
her.
The health system in this game is one of its more unique aspects. Instead of a
health bar, you have a timer that is always held in your left hand that is
constantly counting down from 10 seconds. Every time you get damaged, the timer
goes down faster. However, if you pull off some sweet kills, the timer goes
back up. If the timer reaches zero, you die and have to start over from the
floor right after the last boss. The bosses are typically spaced on every 10th
floor so if you die on floor 36, you have to start back at floor 31 and lose
every temporary upgrade you unlocked along the way. The upgrades are where the
roguelite aspect comes in. Every floor you beat unlocks an upgrade such as a
new weapon, increased movement speed, or reduced boss health. Every time you beat
a boss, you unlock a permanent upgrade like a new tier of weapons or more
upgrade choices per floor.
Now that the story and gameplay mechanics have been explained, I can finally
say what I thought about the game overall. I absolutely loved this game, for
the most part. The developer NAILED the look here. The cinematics made me think
I was watching an old anime but with crisp 4K graphics. The writing was funny,
the music and sound effects fit the tone perfectly, the gunplay was pretty good
from what little I engaged with it, and the animations were fluid. The reason I
say I didn’t engage with the gunplay much was because I couldn’t seem to aim
good enough and fast enough to clear the levels. Luckily, you can unlock a
katana as one of your weapons, so I played through almost the entire game with
it. A couple of the bosses proved to be difficult with a melee weapon, so I had
to switch back to a gun for those. Speaking of difficulty, I played on what is
labeled as the “intended” difficulty of Challenge Mode and it definitely lived
up to the name. This game was very challenging, but there are plenty of
difficulty options if you’re looking for a more casual experience.
The reasons I didn’t rate this game higher come down to the aforementioned
difficulty, the length, and the typical downfalls of the roguelite genre. The
difficulty is completely on me; I could’ve changed the difficulty at any time
but I’m stubborn. After I got the hang of things, the game wasn’t too bad save
for the penultimate boss on floor 70. It took me six attempts to beat that
boss, and I had to fight through ten floors between each attempt which became a
drag. If you’re an epic gamer or don’t mind lowering the difficulty of games
when you’re struggling, this won’t be an issue for you. My second criticism is
game length. Depending on your skill level and the difficulty you play on, you
can beat this game in under five hours which some people would see as a turnoff
with the $20 price tag. I wasn’t too bothered by this since I played the game
for free through Game Pass but it’s worth mentioning. My last gripe is with the
roguelite elements, which is basically the same issue I have with all
roguelike/roguelite games. After you play the game enough, you start to notice
the same room layouts and see the same upgrades over and over again. This leads
to repetition which can be a death sentence for some games, but this game
requires enough focus and provides enough adrenaline from the fast-paced nature
to help mitigate the issue. They also add additional hazards to the rooms as
the game goes on such as tougher enemies, lasers, and pits to keep you on your
toes. There are also only four permanent upgrades in the whole game with three
tiers each and I only cared about two of them so there wasn’t much to look
forward to there. Still, these are fairly minor criticisms of any otherwise
great game, and I encourage anyone who likes FPS games to consider playing this
at some point.
🥉Final
Profit: A Shop RPG (Completionist 59h:54m) – 8.5/10
As the name suggests, Final Profit is a shop management game
with RPG elements. It is built in the RPG Maker engine which will surely get
some groans from those who are familiar. Rest assured though, this is a high-quality
game and was clearly made with a lot of effort and dedication. It is definitely
among my favorite RPG Maker games I’ve played. You play Biz, an elf queen who
is exiled from her town of Faeona and usurped by her daughter after the council
has a disagreement over how to handle the evil Bureau of Business. Her plan is
to become a successful businesswoman herself and rise up the ranks of the
Bureau to destroy it from within. The council is hesitant that this will
corrupt her and she’ll just become another Bureau puppet.
It's clear from the opening cutscene that this isn’t just another RPG Maker
game or just another shop management sim. There’s a ton of side stuff to do,
places to explore, people to meet, and upgrades to purchase. Story driven is an
apt descriptor here too, it’s not just a mindless game where you run around
buying and selling things for no reason. You’re slowly advancing the story by
raising the money necessary to buy the next upgrade and level up which triggers
the next story bit. The most satisfying part of this game is gradually
automating everything until the shops almost run themselves and watching your
coin balance go up faster and faster. If the thought of watching numbers go up
is satisfying to you, you’ll definitely like this game.
As an RPG Maker game, the graphics are good. It has the typical pixel art
graphics that the engine allows, and the tile sets aren’t too obvious. Most of
the character portraits are OK and don’t seem to be default portraits I’ve seen
in other RPG Maker games. The music is fun to listen to as well. I never got
tired of hearing the unique music in each area so it must be doing something
right. There’s no combat in this game, which is unusual for the engine, but it
doesn’t detract from experience at all.
If anything detracted from the experience, it would be the obtuseness of some
of the mechanics and the repetition. For the first point, when you unlock the
second shop in Enterpriston, a lot starts getting thrown at you and not all of
it is explained well. When I was going through all the upgrade requirements, I
had to consult a guide to figure out some of them. There’s also no quest log so
you kind of just have to remember everything you need to do which can be
overwhelming. Once you’ve figured everything out, repetition can set in where
you’re just going through the motions of running the shop and going out to buy
the ingredients to make the commodities when you run low. It’s broken up
somewhat by side quests that trigger when you sell a certain amount of a
particular item which is nice, but those eventually stop coming too.
Thankfully, when you get to the endgame and make more money than God, running
the shop becomes less important and you can just bulk purchase everything you
need.
If the thought of playing a shop management game in RPG Maker with no combat
intrigues you, you owe it to yourself to try this game. The story is great, the
characters are fun, exploration and graphics are satisfactory, and the cycle of
buying upgrades to make more and more money faster and faster is SO SATISFYING!
Just don’t be afraid to look up guides for some of the more obscure mechanics
or collectibles.
This is a turn-based RPG by long-time developer Atlus set in a fantasy world.
That marks a departure from the norm for Atlus whose games typically take place
on Earth either in a post-apocalyptic setting (Shin Megami Tensei) or modern
day (Persona). Seeing as how this is my first Atlus experience, I won’t be able
to make comparisons to their other franchises. This fantasy world is inhabited
by nine intelligent tribes that all appear humanlike in nature (save for one)
with one major change. For example, the Ishkia appear human but have an
inoperable set of wings, or the Clemar who have a pair of small horns on their
head. Some tribes are held in higher regard than others and thus typically hold
positions of power in society. The protagonist is part of the Elda tribe, the
only tribe who appears entirely human and are considered the lowest tribe. The
world is also home to many ordinary and fantastical animals, as well as
horrible monstrosities that everyone refers to as humans. These “humans”
usually have a vaguely human-like face while everything else is horrifically
distorted like a giant sea monster or sandworm.
The game starts with the main antagonist Louis murdering the king in secret
which starts a search for a successor to the throne. The prince, a childhood
friend of the protagonist, was afflicted with a terrible curse years before and
rushed into hiding. The world presumes he is dead, but the protagonist knows
the truth and is on a secret mission to break the curse and restore his
rightful place on the throne. He travels to the capital to join the army to be
sent to a fort nearby to investigate a human threat. There, he meets up with
the first of seven additional playable party members Strohl. Strohl and the
protagonist make it to the fort and confirm the human presence when its
revealed that the protagonist is actually there to meet up with his contact
Grius to deliver a message. The three make it to the top of the fort and run
into a human who is way stronger than they can handle. Just as all hope seems
lost, the protagonist transforms into what the game refers to as Archetypes,
which look kind of like large humanoid robots and act as the different classes.
With this newfound power, the three defeat the human and devise a plan to
murder Louis to break the curse and install the prince on the throne. I won’t
get into any more story details to avoid spoilers.
The combat system in this game is an interesting one. You can have up to four
members in your active party at a time, with the option to swap one party
member for another by spending an action. The number of actions you can take on
your turn is dictated by what are called turn icons. On your turn, you can do a
normal attack, guard, pass, use an item, or transform into your currently
selected Archetype and either use one of their skills or a synthesis skill
which requires the help of another active party member with a specific
Archetypes. These synthesis skills are usually more powerful and use multiple
turn icons to execute. If you pass or hit an enemy’s weakness (either physical
or elemental), only half of a turn icon is consumed. You are then free to
execute any action to consume the other half without having to worry about
hitting an enemy weakness to do so. There are three physical types (slash, pierce,
and bash) and seven elemental types (Fire, Ice, Wind, Electric, Light, Dark,
and Almighty). Most enemies and all Archetypes have resistances and weaknesses
to some of these damage types. When you use up all your turn icons, regardless
of whoever in your party performed an action (or even multiple actions!), it
becomes the enemy’s turn who have their own set of turn icons. There are also
skills available that give you more turn icons or deplete an enemy’s icons when
certain conditions are met.
Every playable character you meet starts with their own Archetype, but you’re
free to assign any Archetype to any character. As you level up each Archetype
on a character, you gain new skills up to level 20. Once you hit level 20, you
get a small permanent stat bonus and can then spend MAG to unlock the next tier
in the same lineage. For example, once you hit level 20 of the Thief Archetype,
you can unlock the Assassin which is considered a heroic Archetype and has more
powerful skills. Once you hit level 20 Assassin and level 10 Sniper from the
Gunner lineage, you can then unlock the Ninja which is the Elite Archetype of
the Thief lineage. Additionally, each character can inherit 1-4 skills they’ve
learned from any of their other Archetypes to their current one. As you can
see, the combat can be very robust, and party synergy is important as you need
certain Archetype combinations to perform certain synthesis skills, and it’s
helpful to have broad damage type coverage so you can always hit weaknesses to
extend your turn.
Like other Atlus RPGs, you can also level up bonds with your followers. Each
party member is a follower, but there are also other characters you meet that
you can bon with as well. Leveling up your bonds with your followers unlocks
new Archetypes, more skill inheritance slots, and a passive ability like having
a chance to receive money at the beginning of the day or being able to cook
without having to spend the day to do so. Speaking of, the game implements a
calendar system that helps guide the story forward. Major story events are
marked on the calendar and you can only perform two activities per day.
Traveling to some locations can take multiple days and dungeons take the full
day every time you enter them. Otherwise, you are free to choose one activity
to do during the day such as talk to a fellow citizen to level up one of your
royal virtues required to advance certain bonds (courage, wisdom, tolerance,
eloquence, and imagination) and then take on a fight at the coliseum at night
before moving on to the next day. This system requires you to carefully plan
out what you want to do every day so you don’t waste too much time doing one
thing and then missing out on certain quests or bonds before major story
events.
This is unfortunately one of my biggest complaints about this game. If you
don’t know what you should or shouldn’t do day by day, it’s possible to miss
certain quests or be unable to max out your bond with every follower. In my
playthrough, the first small town I came across sold items that said they
raised the protagonist’s agility stat 2 every time it’s used. It sounded like a
good deal to me so I bought all 20 they had on hand. I didn’t find out until
later that you can’t just use them all whenever you want, you can only use them
one at a time, can only use them at night while on your main mode of
transportation the gauntlet runner, and it spends the night to do so. In
another instance, I excitedly traveled to a new location the map as soon as it
became available. It took three whole days to get there only to find out that
the weather was bad which causes enemies to be stronger and prevents you from
being able to spend only half of a turn icon when hitting their weakness. On
top of that, I was way underleveled for the area which I couldn’t’ve known
because there are no level requirements listed anywhere. After fighting through
to the top of the spire, I was unable to defeat the final boss and had to turn
around and go home. This was a massive waste of time that could’ve been avoided
if I was aware of how strong enemies were in the area and of certain unlocks
later in the game that made the area and travel in general easier (trying to
avoid spoilers). These uncertainties piled on which ultimately led to me not
being able to max out all of my bonds which also meant I couldn’t complete all
of their quests and unlock all of their Archetypes which was a huge bummer. I
take issue with MP being such a precious resource until the late game. This
initially forced me to use Archetypes I wouldn’t normally use which was
interesting, but it led to me having to avoid skills in combat, take multiple
days to clear a dungeon since I had to leave to recuperate, and eventually
avoid enemy encounters entirely. That’s no fun, and there was one especially
egregious dungeon where there were entire areas I just couldn’t explore because
I didn’t have the mana required to investigate.
I also have another handful of complaints that are minor but when added up
caused me to slightly lower the score for this game. The graphics are nothing
to write home about when compared to other games released at the time. The 2D
character portraits and cutscenes look great, but the 3D portions leave a lot
to be desired with low resolution textures everywhere. The animations are
repetitive, and I quickly noticed every character only has a few that they
cycle through which took me out of the experience for a lot of dialog heavy
scenes. That wasn’t helped by the mediocre lip-syncing either, whenever they
bothered to voice their lines at all instead of just showing text. Likewise,
the music selection is limited, with most battles playing just a single song.
In a game that takes over 100 hours to finish, hearing the same two or three
songs over and over can get grating. I also felt that the story really started
to drag towards the end, a common complaint with most games of this length.
Once I learned all the major story revelations (some of which I figured out
really early on), it felt like the game just kept padding itself instead of
letting me resolve the multitude of threads. As much as I enjoyed the game, I
was ready for it to be over.
I listed a lot of negatives in the last two paragraphs, but I still really
enjoyed myself. The characters are all likable (or unlikable if they’re
supposed to be), most of the story is entertaining, the monster designs were
somewhat creative, and the combat was engaging if not somewhat repetitive once
you had all your Archetypes and skills locked in. I would recommend it to
anyone familiar with turn-based RPGs who wouldn’t be put off by the length or
anime aesthetic. It got me more excited to get into the Persona series someday,
and I hope Atlus continues to explore alternative settings in their future
titles.
This game is a
turn-based RPG with real-time shooting, dodging, and parrying elements by
French developer Sandfall Interactive. I point out that the developer is French
for two reasons. One, I wanted to call the game a JRPG because it shares a lot
of the same tropes as other games of the genre. However, since it wasn’t
developed by a Japanese studio, some might say that automatically disqualifies
it. I don’t really care about labels that much and won’t go into my thoughts on
whether it qualifies. The second and much more important reason is because the
game is heavily influenced by French culture. The opening city of Lumière is
based off Paris, you fight mimes, you can unlock silly outfits with baguettes
and berets, and people occasionally throw out French words in otherwise English
conversations. It’s all very delightful, and not something I’ve seen in a lot
of games.
The premise for the
world is that every year, there’s a giant lady way off in the distance known as
the Paintress who paints a number on a monolith. The number goes down by one
every year and when the new number is painted, everyone older than that number
dies (known as the Gommage, which is French for erased). There is a festival at
this time to say goodbye to loved ones gommaging and set out the next day on
expeditions. The goal of these expeditions is to make it to the Paintress and
kill her to stop the Gommage from happening ever again. You see, there was an
event called the Fracture that happened 67 years before the start of the game
that broke Lumière off from the rest of the Continent, made physics go all
wonky, introduced monsters known as nevrons, and started the Gommage in the
first place starting at year 100.
The game starts with
a very sad scene showing the number 33 being painted on the monolith and the
subsequent gommage of the ex-girlfriend of one of the party members Gustave.
They broke up sometime before the events of the game but clearly still have feelings
for each other that Gustave finally expresses moments before she dies. This
sets the tone for most of the game which is just emotional gut punch after gut
punch. There are humorous moments, but for the most part, the game is a
tragedy. After the Gommage, Gustave’s sister gives a rousing speech about how
important the expeditions are and even if you don’t make it back, you’ll blaze
a trail “for those who come after” and so on and so forth. Then the titular
Expedition 33 sets sail for the Continent to finally take down the Paintress
once and for all!
Here's the thing
though. No expedition has ever made it back, and the Gommage is still happening
every year. Deep down, everyone knows it’s a suicide mission. Some people
decide they want to go anyway, either out of perseverance, misplaced
confidence, curiosity, dedication, or just because they feel there’s nothing
left for them in Lumière. They’d rather explore the world than wait around to
die. That’s the case for Gustave’s adopted sister Maelle, who decides she wants
to go with her brother on the expedition despite being way younger than the
other expeditions and thus having many good years left. She insists, and he
begrudgingly allows her to go. This might prove to be a mistake since as soon
as they land on the Continent, they’re greeted by an old man who somehow
survived the Gommage who just starts massacring them. Gustave is knocked
unconscious during the battle and comes to the next day where he sets off to
the planned rendezvous point only to be met with a massive pile of bodies from
past expeditioners. Overcome with loss and hopelessness, he sits down against
the pile of bodies to kill himself, only to be talked out of it by fellow
expeditioner Lune with the oft-quoted phrase “when one falls, we continue.”
This all happens
within the first hour or two of the game! I won’t go into the story anymore for
risk of spoilers, but it is very well-written, told, and presented. Speaking of
presentation, the graphics are some of the best I’ve ever seen. It runs on Unreal
Engine 5, and before you raise your pitchforks, it seems Sandfall utilized the
engine well. I didn’t experience any shader compilation, stuttering, or poor
performance that seems to be prevalent in other games using the engine. I do
admittedly have a high-end PC so I’m not the best judge for performance, but it
ran well for me. The music is another standout, and you can listen to the whole
OST on YouTube!
Finally, on to the
gameplay itself. As I mentioned at the beginning, it’s a turn-based RPG with
real-time elements. You can pick three out of a possible five total party
members to go into battle with, with the other two serving as backup if the
first team goes down. There is a turn order on the top-left of the screen that
determines who goes and when. When it is one of your party member’s turns, you
can choose one of six skills to use out of the 20-30 available for each
character depending on what you want to accomplish and how many action points
or AP you have. It could be something simple like a lightning damage skill
against an enemy weak to that element or something more complicated like firing
some free-aim shots to mark an enemy, then using a skill to apply the
defenseless status effect so the next character will do a lot more damage on
their turn. Each party member plays completely differently and has their own
mechanics to learn which makes combat more exciting and opens the door to some
amazing party synergies. Each character can also equip three pictos which
provide one ability such as dealing more damage to burning enemies as well as
one or two passive stat increases like 500 more health or 30% higher critical
hit rate. When you’ve won four battles with a pictos equipped, you can spend
lumina points to have any character benefit from the ability it offers without
the stat increase that goes with it. You can also use one of three items in
combat to heal, revive, or replenish AP or use one of three levels of gradient
attacks which are basically unique supers that each character has that don’t
use up your turn. You build up gradient charges primarily by doing damage but
also by parrying attacks. Speaking of, on the enemy turn, you can learn enemy
attack patterns to time button presses to dodge or parry their hits. Doing
either one negates damage, but they each have an advantage and disadvantage.
Dodging has a bigger timing window so it’s easier to execute. On the other
hand, parrying every attack on an enemy turn provokes a counterattack that
allows you to do massive damage. All these systems mesh together along with the
enemy variety to keep combat fresh and engaging throughout the entire playtime.
When outside of
combat, you can explore out in the overworld and in designated zones to find
collectibles, talk to NPCs, buy new pictos and equipment, fight monsters,
complete side quests, or further the main story. Anytime in the overworld, you
can set up camp to talk to party members to advance relationships with them and
unlock new abilities. There is also a merchant at camp to upgrade items and
equipment as well as increase the number of lumina points available for each
character. You’ll spend a decent amount of time at camp as the game likes
sending you back there at many major story beats. The camp looks exactly the
same no matter where you set it up, which could be a bit of a bummer for some,
but at least it allows you to learn where everything is to get in and out
relatively quickly.
I’ve been praising
this game heavily this whole time, but it wouldn’t be a review if I didn’t
point out the flaws I came across. Some are minor, some are subjective, and
there’s at least one that could potentially be a major issue. One minor issue
that comes up a lot is that there are invisible walls EVERYWHERE when you’re
exploring in the different areas. This usually bothers me more in other games
and takes me out of the experience, but it becomes easier to spot where you can
and can’t go to stick to the paths. Some people will find the optional
platforming sections frustrating and out of place, but I didn’t really have an
issue with them. Some areas can also be a real maze to navigate, and there’s no
map outside of the overworld which can make the navigation confusing. There’s a
story moment that comes up at the end of Act II that recontextualizes the whole
game, and as a result, Act III can feel more open-ended and directionless. If
someone wasn’t totally enamored with the game up to that point like I was, I
can see them rushing to the final boss shortly after Act III starts just to get
it over and done with. I would obviously advise against that as there’s tons of
stuff to do, but the central plot device up to that point is no longer a
motivating factor which can cause some people to fall off. It’s very hard to
avoid spoilers here, I’m trying the best I can! The one major issue I ran into,
and this is impossible for me to ignore, is that I experienced regular game
crashes starting in Act II. The crashes would come almost like clockwork after
2-3 hours of play. There are frequent saves, so I never lost any meaningful
progress from them, but it was annoying and I found myself anxiously looking at
the time every time I had sessions longer than two hours just bracing for the
inevitable. It could just be a problem with my PC setup, but it made some longer
boss fights or cutscenes more nerve-wracking than they should’ve been. Your
mileage may vary on that, and console players probably don’t have anything to
worry about.
So that’s my rundown
of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. This is by far the longest review I’ve written
to date, but I had a lot to say about this title. I loved it to bits, and I
would wholeheartedly recommend it to all RPG fans out there. The fact that this
was the debut title for an indie studio is mind-blowing to me. I sincerely hope
that other studios are taking notes to improve their future games. The story,
music, graphics, characters, and gameplay are all top-notch. No game is
perfect, nor do I think perfection is possible. I pointed out the issues I had
in the last paragraph. But a game doesn’t have to be perfect to be a
masterpiece, and this game absolutely deserves the title. I await with bated
breath for Sandfall’s next title, they knocked it out of the park here.
Conclusion/Upcoming
So, there you have it, my year in review for 2025. This was
quite the undertaking. Tracking every game acquired, every dollar spent, and
every hour played is a very meticulous process. Adding on top of that posting
every week (sometimes twice a week), editing every gameplay recording, making
thumbnails for every game, and uploading every gameplay session to YouTube and
it starts to feel like I’ve turned my hobby into a job. I don’t even want to
imagine how many hours I spent on all of the above that I could’ve spent
actually playing video games. As such, I will be stepping back from the weekly
posts to focus on what I really care about. I’m planning to keep up with the
blog on a monthly basis, but weekly is way too much work. The YouTube videos
are also taking up a lot of time, but I don’t know what I want to do about that
yet. I found my groove with the editing process and can usually knock out my
hour-long videos in a few minutes. They barely get any views though, so it once
again feels like a lot of work for nothing. I’m going back and forth on
starting to stream, but I’m not sure my gameplay style and general demeanor
lend themselves well to entertainment. I’ll have to think about all of this
some more. In any case, I want to thank everyone who read my blog or watched my
videos sometime in the past year. I appreciate the few of you who took time out
of your day to express interest in this silly little hobby of mine. Even if I
don’t end up keeping up with the blog or YouTube, I will continue to write
reviews and will have a top 10 post of 2026 this time next year. Thanks
everyone, until next time!
