Monthly Update #20: August 2026

Another month dominated by Game Pass games with an unexpected retro completion mixed in. Also back to my bundle buying spree including another itch.io charity mega bundle to further inflate my backlog, like it needs to be any bigger.

Game Acquisitions

I was so proud of myself for holding off on buying anything. I didn’t buy anything for over a month (July 9^th-August 12^th)! Alas, all good things must come to an end, and I picked up my first VR bundle in quite a while. It was on the expensive side, but VR games tend to be more expensive anyway and it was a bunch of newer games that hadn’t even come close to the bundle price so I couldn’t resist. Now I have both Arizona Sunshine and Into the Radius games to look forward to when I finally buy a headset. I proceeded to buy a few more bundles towards the end of the month including itch.io’s Game industry hardship fund to add another 54 games to my backlog for a measly $10. Can’t argue with that value, and it goes towards a good cause as usual. The rest were giveaways, Reddit trades, and Steam family purchases as usual.

# of Games: 126

Total Money Spent: $88.53

Price/Game: $0.70

# of Games YTD: 674

Total Money Spent YTD: $474.48

Price/Game: $0.70

Game Recaps

Balatro made up almost half my playtime in August. I spent much longer than I expected on it. I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to go, but I managed to beat every deck on the lowest difficulty, then beat one deck on gold stake which is the highest difficulty. I was satisfied with that and called it there as it was starting to feel repetitive. The last of the 2D Final Fantasy games took the #2 spot in playtime. I enjoyed my time with all the Final Fantasy games I’ve played so far, and I’m sad to say goodbye to that era of the franchise. The next game in the series for me will be 4 Heroes of Light for the DS which I’m not super looking forward to as it doesn’t have great reviews. After that though will be the legendary PS1 era. VIII is a bit of a black sheep of the franchise along with II, but I’m super looking forward to VII and IX when I get around to them. It’s gonna be quite a while before I get there though.

Next up on the list was Minishoot’ Adventures which was a neat little bullet hell metroidvania. I’m not usually a bullet hell fan, and there was one dungeon in particular that was very frustrating to navigate and find all the collectibles in, but it was a good game otherwise. I AM YOUR BEAST was a short and sweet FPS with a speedrunning focus similar to Neon White. It wasn’t as good as that game in my opinion, but the smooth performance, politics-heavy story, and wonderful voice acting from the main characters carried it.

I also had not one but TWO sessions of Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut with my coop buddy. We made pretty good progress, I think. We fought our way through Moreau Castle taking out Batista which was the hardest fight in the game so far. We then made our way to Terazzi Castle and took out Tiberius which seemed to be a much easier fight. We ended our last session after getting our tragic backstory for Scary (Mary) and starting our trek to Heidelberg. Lastly, I had another unexpected game completion while going through my emulation testing. I beat one of the earliest games in the roguelike genre with Dragon Crystal. The game came out all the way back in 1990 for the Sega Master System. It’s older than I am! This also marks my first completion on a Sega console which is super exciting. Playlists of all the games I played or released in August are below. Please note that Minishoot’ Adventures won’t be up until November 22nd, I AM YOUR BEAST on December 16th, and FINAL FANTASY VI on Christmas. I’m currently uploading one video every three days to ensure a constant stream of content, at least until the FINAL FANTASY videos are done uploading which won’t be until February. After that, I might switch to every other day so there aren’t months between when I play a game and when you guys can watch it. 

Game Reviews

FINAL FANTASY VI

FINAL FANTASY VI marks the end of the SNES era for the franchise and thus the 2D entries and man did it go out with a bang. From the very beginning, you can tell they’re going all in on cinematics and storytelling. The production values were much improved over the previous games despite still originally being on the SNES console. The next thing you immediately notice is that unlike the previous games which take place in the traditional medieval fantasy setting with knights and magic, this takes place in the future with mechs and mega factories. Magic died out 1,000 years ago with some people believing it never existed at all. It’s a fascinating setting and a welcome change of pace.

Combat still used the active time battle system from IV and V but with some twists. The job system from III and V is gone unfortunately, but in its place are character-specific abilities that all 14(!) playable characters possess as well as assignable Espers or summons which provide access to certain spells as well as a unique move and stat boosts on level-up. Once you use a spell obtained through an Esper enough times, you master it and can go on to use it even when switching to a different Esper. This allowed any character that can use Espers (which is most of them) to learn any spells. On one hand, this allows very flexible character customization as you can build any party member to do anything you want. On the other hand, it caused a lot of characters to feel the same since there are some spells that are simply better than others, so you try to teach those spells to everybody. The character-specific abilities were cool too, but I felt like they didn’t evolve much and I ended up using the same ones for every fight since near the beginning of the game. All of these factors combined to make what I felt was the easiest game in the series so far, for better or worse.

What the game lacks in combat depth, it makes up for with its story. I loved that all the main characters had their own backstories and motivations. There were a lot of optional characters you can recruit which didn’t have much in the way of story, and it’s understandable that not all 14 playable characters could be fully fleshed out, but the main ones were deep enough to make up for it. I loved that the summons were actual characters in the story too. Final Fantasy IV touched on this concept a little bit with the Land of Summons, but VI took it to another level with them being one of the main plot points in the story. I loved the mid-game plot twist that led to a darker and more open second half to the game. I thought the idea of splitting up the party to navigate multiple parts of some dungeons simultaneously was a cool concept, even if they were frustrating to get around in. But most importantly, I loved the opera scene which gave me my first taste of voice acting in a Final Fantasy game. I was awestruck at that scene (if you know, you know). I was debating giving this game an 8.5, same as Final Fantasy V, due to the less exciting combat and disjointed first half. However, thinking back to the wonderful story and that scene in particular and the emotions I felt while watching it, I have to bump it up to a 9. This is the pinnacle of the series so far to me, and I’m excited to see if VII can pass it. Every RPG fan owes it to themselves to play this game.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 32h:42m
Rating – 9/10

Dragon Crystal

Dragon Crystal is a very early roguelike game released for the Sega Master System back in 1990. As with most games at the time, the story is basically nonexistent. It starts by showing you getting trapped in a crystal and presumably you need to get out. That’s everything shown to you in game. The manual does go into a little more detail, which was also typical at the time. You’re plopped in at level one surrounded by monsters, loot, and plants that block your path and turn every level into a maze. You must make it through 30 increasingly difficult levels to reach the exit and win the game.

Dragon Crystal does have a few things going for it. Enemies only move when you move SUPERHOT style so you can plan your way around them. Some items you pick up can’t be identified until used in battle at which point their effect is revealed which is kind of cool. Every few levels the biome changes which provides a welcome change of scenery. As is typical with roguelikes, the levels are semi-randomized, so no two runs are exactly the same. While this is commonplace now, I imagine this was a novel concept back when this game was released.

Unfortunately, the game has all the trappings reminiscent of games released at the time. Besides the lack of story as mentioned earlier, it also suffers from no tutorials and is just way too difficult. At one point in my playthrough I got stuck and had to look up a guide which told me I should be running into every wall to see if it’s actually a secret passage which is a mechanic that is never explained. If you pick up an item and equip it, there’s a random chance that item will be cursed and if you don’t have the means of removing the curse, sucks to be you. On top of that, later levels have enemies strong enough to kill you in a couple hits, especially if you haven’t been killing all the enemies up to that point to get stronger. The randomized nature of the game means there’s a good chance powerful enemies can swarm you and end your run just because you were unlucky. There’s a difference between a game being challenging and a game being unfair, and this one falls into the latter camp. I wouldn’t have gotten close to beating it if it weren’t for emulator rewinds. After I beat the game, I realized I had no strong feelings one way or another about it. Some of the mechanics are cool, but the mindless running around and punishing enemy encounters left me feeling apathetic about the whole thing. I don’t think this game is worth playing today unless you’re extremely curious about what an old roguelike looks like.

Time to beat (Main) - 1h:57m
Rating – 5/10

Balatro

Balatro is a roguelite deckbuilder where the goal is to earn enough chips through playing poker hands to beat ever-increasing blinds. Once you beat eight antes, each made up of a small blind, a big blind, and a boss, you win the run. It sounds simple on paper, but there are so many game-changing modifiers in this game, it’s ridiculous. There are 15 decks to choose from ranging from getting an extra discard every round to randomizing every card in the deck. There are also 150 jokers that all have unique effects and act as the main mechanic for earning more chips. These range from something simple like +1 hand size to something much more powerful like increasing the chip multiplier every time you add a card to your deck.

While poker lays the groundwork for playing and scoring, Balatro quickly does away with typical poker strategies. You would normally want to play a high scoring hand like a full house or four-of-a-kind, but if your deck composition, active jokers, and hand levels favor lower scoring hands, it’s totally possible and even likely that you can score way more points with something as simple as a pair over something like a royal flush. Tarot cards can allow you to add, remove, or modify cards in your deck if you want more or less of a rank or suit to make playing boosted hands easier to pull off. Money is earned by winning blinds, certain jokers, and interest on money already earned but not spent and is used to buy items in the shop between rounds. With a staggering 340 collection items that include jokers, playing cards, boss blind abilities, booster packs, vouchers, and more, as well as enhancements, editions, and seals that can be applied to those cards, the amount of depth present in Balatro is truly a sight to behold.

And yet, despite the sheer variety of cards available and the strategies you can form with them, I felt the game get repetitive after a while. Perhaps it’s because I lacked the knowledge to form truly game-breaking decks, but after a while, I found myself employing the same strategy every run and praying that luck was on my side. My preferred deck was the checkered deck which removes all clubs and diamonds, so you have 26 spades and 26 hearts instead. I would combine this with my favorite hand (the flush), which this deck made extremely easy to play. Then every round consisted of just played flushes and hoping shops provided me with the cards I needed to power up those flushes to ridiculous levels to beat ante eight. This ended up working well enough for me to beat gold stake with that deck which is the highest difficulty available. By that point, I had seen almost everything the game had to offer and there wasn’t enough variety for me to continue. Even so, I had a lot of fun getting to that point and can recommend this game to anyone with even a passing interest in roguelikes or deckbuilders.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) – 40h:41m

Rating – 8/10

Minishoot’ Adventures

Minishoot’ Adventures (apostrophe intentional) is a top-down bullet hell metroidvania that has you pilot a sentient spaceship on a mission to rescue all your ship buddies that have been frozen by a rogue ship. There are hints of a dark backstory, especially if you go for all the lore tablets and the true final boss, but this is basically all you have otherwise. There’s no dialogue in the game and all the characters are sentient ships that express their emotions through beeps, hearts, and twirls. It’s all quite charming, but it does limit the story somewhat so I wouldn’t go into this game expecting anything too deep in the story department.

The basic gameplay loop involves exploring a large overworld littered with enemies, navigating intricately-designed dungeons, and taking out bosses to unlock new powers to explore different parts of the map. The game plays like a twin-stick shooter with the left stick moving your ship and the right stick firing your bullets. There are upgrades available that are pretty standard for games like this such as better guns, faster movement speed, and more health. There is a handy map to help with navigation that points to the next story objective, although dungeon maps are notably absent. After taking out the four bosses in each of the four main dungeons, the endgame dungeon opens up to fight the final boss and beat the game.

I am not typically a bullet hell fan, but this one seems more accessible than most (I played on original difficulty which is their version of normal). Even so, expect having to read enemy patterns and dodging a ton of bullets. I enjoyed slowly upgrading my ship and unlocking new areas, but sometimes figuring out where to go was frustrating, and a lot of the bosses had way too many phases for my taste. Getting 100% of the overworld map cleared was a particular pain point for me and I had to resort to looking up a guide to clear it and unlock the true ending. Despite getting more powerful as the game goes on, I never felt like it ever evolved past the opening hour. What you see at hour one is basically the same as hour ten when I wrapped my playthrough after checking out the endgame challenges. I enjoyed my time with the game, but it never felt like a particularly deep experience. Even so, I recommend it to fans of the bullet hell or metroidvania genres.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) – 9h:47m

Rating – 7.5/10

I AM YOUR BEAST

I AM YOUR BEAST is a fast-paced first person shooter where the goal is to get through each of the 26 main levels as quickly as possible. The gameplay is similar to Neon White, albeit without the card system or fantastical environments. The objective for most of the levels is to kill all the enemies, although there are a handful that want you to use laptops scattered around or destroy radar equipment. When you beat a level, you’re graded based on how quickly you completed it, with certain kill types scoring more points than others. You also unlock bonus objectives to encourage replaying levels differently such as not killing anyone or killing people with a certain type of weapon. There were a couple times throughout the very short campaign where it was necessary for me to go back to replay an earlier level to complete more objectives, but it wasn’t anything too egregious.

I’m not a speedrunner and tend to take my time when playing games, but I must admit it was satisfying to see myself improve after playing a level enough times to the point where I was zooming through it getting headshots left and right. The gameplay loop wasn’t as addicting as Neon White though, and I found myself unmotivated to go for A-ranks as the campaign progressed. There are only a couple enemy types and one “boss fight” with a helicopter so there wasn’t a ton of variety even with the multitudes of weapons available. I think the thing that surprised me the most and helped bump my score up was the voice acting. There are only three main characters that sometimes talk to each other between levels, but they all had incredible performances that helped keep me invested in the story. The responsiveness in the controls and rock-solid performance meant the game never got in the way of me mowing through the bad guys, which is essential in games like this. There’s also a meaty set of epilogue levels, as well as super-hard challenge levels if you really want to test your skills. If you’re in the mood for a quick FPS with a surprisingly intriguing story and don’t mind the lack of variety in the gameplay, I think I AM YOUR BEAST will be worth your time.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) – 4h:40m

Rating – 8/10

Stats

The year to date pie chart is getting mighty full, perhaps this wasn’t the best way to convey this information 😅 In any case, you can see that Balatro shot up to my third most played game this year, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I stuck with it much longer than I planned to, which just goes to show how addictive it can be. Final Fantasy VI squeaks in at #6 appropriately enough. Now five of my eight most played games in 2026 are Final Fantasy games which isn’t too surprising.

August marks my second highest acquisition month in stark contrast to July. This was fueled mainly by the itch.io charity bundle I mentioned earlier. The spending subsequently shot up as well, but at least there was a good money spent to games acquired ratio. Lastly, I had my lowest recorded playtime since May and third lowest for the year. I’m not entirely sure what contributed to that, but 70 hours is still nothing to sneeze at. I’m still waiting for that magical 100-hour month, I think it’s doable!

Conclusion/Upcoming

I’m still focusing on the Game Pass catalog, with four out of five completions being through the service (Dragon Crystal being the exception). I’ve now completed all the Final Fantasy games available through it and I own most of the other games I plan on playing in the series, so it’s gonna be a while before I play another one. I didn’t see anything leaving the service in the first half of September that I would have time to beat, so next up on my list is Absolum. I’ve also got BALL x PIT and Little Rocket Lab queued up to finish out the month. I’ve been saying I’ll get to Little Rocket Lab for months now so it’s gotta happen eventually. I’m sure there will be another session or two of Tales of Destiny as well. I think we’re nearing the halfway point? Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Anyway, that’s gonna be it for me this month. I’ll see you all when September ends. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 4,612 (+169)

Monthly Update #19: July 2026

Holy moly, July certainly was Final Fantasy month. Dimensions was way longer than I was expecting, and I decided to jump into VI immediately afterward. I’m almost done with the 2D Final Fantasy era! On another note, I think I hit the perfect balance of low spending and high game time. If only every month could be like this one.

Game Acquisitions

A ton of bundles released last month as usual, but none of them really appealed to me enough to make a purchase. I did buy a super cheap 5/$3 bundle from Fanatical at the beginning of the month but that’s the only one. I also made the rare single game purchase with Octopath Traveler. I figured since I got the sequel in Humble Choice, I’d add the original to my wishlist and it went on sale for its historical low almost immediately. Everything else was freebies. Octopath Traveler is probably the one I’m looking forward to the most, but Echo Generation is up there too.

# of Games: 30

Total Money Spent: $17.80

Price/Game: $0.59

# of Games YTD: 548

Total Money Spent YTD: $385.95

Price/Game: $0.70

Game Recaps

As you can see, Final Fantasy made up the vast majority of my playtime for July. I started Dimensions in June, but most of my time with it was last month. I played it almost everyday from July 4^th to the 23^rd so it must’ve been compelling enough to keep coming back to. I also had a couple surprise completions with Cadash and Dispatch. Cadash was a rare example of testing out one of my emulated games and it being short enough to beat in one sitting. It also marks my first TurboGrafx-16 completion so that’s exciting! The second surprise was Dispatch which subsequently marks my first completion through the Amazon Luna streaming service. I wasn’t planning on playing anything through streaming, but it was available for free through the service and I was interested in the game already, so I thought why not. The experience was definitely subpar compared to native as I suspected it would be, but the nature of the game as mostly a visual novel made that less of an issue. I had another co-op session in Tales of Destiny as well. It’s gonna take us forever to get through this game if we only play once a month. We made it through the hardest fight of the game so far with the Cave Queen. It ended up being a matter of taking out its parts with magic, then attacking the main body with physical attacks. It was straightforward enough, but it did show that my buddy still isn’t vibing with the combat system. Trying to use an arte when your CC isn’t high enough just results in moving in the direction you pressed instead which was frustrating for him. I like the idea of not having to worry about mana, but not being able to use artes whenever you want might not be worth the tradeoff. In any case, we persevered and ended our session at Moreau. Lastly, I spent the last week of the month playing Final Fantasy VI. I wasn’t vibing with it at first, but after the Opera scene and the introduction of espers (summons) as actual characters as well as combat mechanics, now I’m invested. I’m excited to see where it goes. I just got the airship in the World of Ruin and starting my quest to reunite with all my friends. Please see all my let’s plays below for anything I either played or released in July. Some of these videos have a delay before they go public. Cadash will be up August 5th, Final Fantasy Dimensions August 21st, and Final Fantasy VI waaaaay later on December 25th. The reason for that being so late is because I didn’t want to start uploading videos from VI until Dimensions finished since they’re the same series. That shouldn’t be a problem for other games. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game Reviews

Cadash

Cadash is a platformer with RPG elements from the early 90s. The story is about your basic save the princess from the evil wizard trope and nothing to write home about. You have four classes to choose from including the fighter, mage, priestess, and ninja. I played the fighter but briefly tried out the other classes after beating the game and was surprised at how different they all felt. There is also a two-player option that I imagine could be fun with a patient friend, but I used rewind extensively in my playthrough due to the high difficulty that was common back then which wouldn’t work in a co-op scenario.

As my first completion of a TurboGrafx-16 (aka PC Engine) game, I was impressed with Cadash. It’s still basic by today’s standards, but having four unique classes, a story, NPCs to talk to, small towns littered throughout the dungeon, weapons/armor/items to buy in shops, and a leveling system I feel would escalate it above other platformers at the time. There was even a twist final boss after the supposed final boss and a brief cutscene which was a satisfying end to the game. The different environments were nice to look at too. Besides the difficulty, the other main complaint I have is how shallow the RPG elements felt. Maybe it was because I played the most basic class, but I never really felt different when I leveled up. I think your health and damage go up slightly but that’s it. You can buy healing items and antidotes in the shops, but there’s no inventory to view so you have no idea how many you have. Your appearance did change as you bought better weapons and armor though which I thought was a nice touch. There’s no save system, so you either have to make use of save states or beat the whole thing in one sitting like I did. Overall, I recommend Cadash to any retro platformer fans that never got around to it. I specify retro fans because I imagine the trappings of retro games such as the basic story/gameplay and high difficulty will turn off more casual players.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 1h:48m
Rating – 6.5/10

Dispatch

Dispatch is an interactive movie/visual novel with the occasional management sim and hacking minigame thrown in for good measure. You play Robert Robertson, a former superhero down on his luck after his mech suit (the only “power” he has) is destroyed in the intro. You’re recruited by Blonde Blazer, a superhero and manager at the Superhero Dispatch Network (or SDN) to work as a hero dispatcher. They agree to fix your suit so you can be a superhero again which is a proposition Robert can’t pass up. You meet a colorful cast of characters with distinct personalities and get into all kinds of wacky workplace scenarios mixed in with emotional moments and a couple romance options if you want to pursue that.

Dispatch can be broken down into three gameplay styles. The first and most prominent is the visual novel style popularized by studios such as Telltale. If you enjoyed the decision making and QTEs from Telltale games such as The Wolf Among Us or Tales from the Borderlands, you’ll likely enjoy this. One major difference is that there are no 3D environments to walk around and explore, everything plays out like a movie. The second is the hero management through your role as a dispatcher. This plays somewhat similar to games like 911 Operator, although the individual heroes have their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities that make some heroes better suited to some calls than others. They each have their own starting stats, but you can build them out however you want throughout the game. There are even synergies between certain characters so if you send them out together, they have a better chance of succeeding on the call. The third style is the hacking minigame that you occasionally enter to help out on calls during the hero management. The gameplay here reminds me of a game called Midnight Protocol. You move a ball around cyberspace to activate nodes, avoid antiviruses, and solve puzzles. It wasn’t as in-depth as Midnight Protocol, but that didn’t make me any better at it 😜 All three styles were enjoyable and worked well together to break up the monotony while still keeping the story moving.

As with most visual novels, the story and characters are the most important aspect, and I think Dispatch nailed this. The story didn’t have amazing highs and lows or world-shattering stakes, but it balanced comedy and tragedy well. I’m not totally happy with the ambiguous, darker fate of one of the main characters, but that’s a consequence of the choices I made and not the story itself, so I’ll let it slide. The characters were the main highlight for me. I loved their personalities and the way they played off each other. The banter between might be some of the most realistic and funny I’ve seen in a game. This is helped by wonderful acting from a talented cast such as Aaron Paul, Matt Mercer, and Jeffrey Wright. I would absolutely be interested in a season 2 if AdHoc Studio decides to go for it. I should note that there is a lot of blood, swearing, and nudity in this game, although there are censorship options available to mitigate that if it’s not something you’re into. If you’re looking for a good, character-driven story, don’t have superhero fatigue, and aren’t too concerned by the minimal gameplay on offer, Dispatch is an easy recommendation from me.

Time to beat (Main) - 8h:8m
Rating – 8.5/10

FINAL FANTASY DIMENSIONS

I decided to play Final Fantasy Dimensions right after V because I heard it takes heavy inspiration from that entry in the series with the job system. Now having played through both games, I can confirm that is the case, although I don’t think it quite lives up to it. It’s still a great game though, especially for a mobile title.

As I just mentioned, the job system from Final Fantasy V makes a return here. Each of the eight (!) playable characters have a set of basic jobs they can learn such as warrior or black mage, but then there are a handful of specialized jobs that only one team can learn like the paladin for the Warriors of Light or the ninja for the Warriors of Darkness. As you level up each job, you unlock abilities specific to that job that can then be carried over to other jobs to make a character that feels uniquely suited to your playstyle. This was my favorite aspect of V but unfortunately, it doesn’t feel as well executed here. One problem I have is that most of the abilities I unlocked weren’t very exciting. They usually amount to basic stat increases like strength +20% with only the occasional ability that felt truly game-changing. The other major problem I had was the implementation of job points. Every job you unlock can be freely leveled up to level three, but then you would have to spend job points to level them up any further. You only get a handful of points at major story beats throughout the game, so they feel limited until the very end. I felt that this actively discouraged the use of mixing and matching jobs and instead railroaded each character into the choices you made at the beginning of the game whether they were good or not. That defeats the whole purpose of the job system! As you near the end of the game, you get enough points to start experimenting with other jobs, but at that point, grinding to level up those jobs becomes tedious with the high level enemies you’re facing and no longer feels worth it.

Another new wrinkle introduced in this game that sounds cool on paper are the fusion abilities. These are combinations of two abilities, usually by two different jobs, that have a chance of being unlocked when you use one ability while having the other ability equipped. For example, at level 13, the monk learns an ability called chakra which heals a small amount of health and cures one ally of some basic status effects like confusion. At level six, the dragoon learns an ability called healing breath that heals all party members for a moderate amount of health. If a character has leveled up both jobs to their respective levels, equips one of those jobs, and has the other job in their ability slot, when they use chakra as a monk or healing breath as a dragoon, there’s a chance they’ll learn a fusion ability called white wind. White wind will heal the entire party for the current health of the caster which makes it extremely powerful if put on a character with a lot of health. The fusion ability is then tied to that character, and they can use it whenever they want regardless of the jobs or abilities they have equipped. There are dozens of fusion abilities in the game, and they make up some of the most powerful abilities you can use. The problem is that there’s no way you’ll unlock any of the actually useful abilities by just experimenting like the game wants you to do, partly due to the job points limiting which jobs you’re willing to let your characters work through. No casual player is just going to happen to level one character to bard level 20 and paladin level 17, have the abilities of both jobs equipped, and get lucky enough to cast dire dirge or wide slash enough times for shock to be unlocked. The job points, grinding, and sheer luck required for that to happen are astronomically low. I only unlocked a small handful of low level fusion abilities naturally in my playthrough and had to look up a guide to unlock anything remotely useful for the endgame.

I unfortunately have a few other problems I want to bring up with this game. One is partially my fault with the order I’m playing the series in, but it’s the lack of quality of life features the pixel remasters brought. I missed being able to save whenever I want, turning off encounters on a whim, and viewing dungeon maps. These were invaluable tools that gave me more freedom to look around and grab any chests I may have missed without fear of being worn down by constant battles. The encounter rate in Final Fantasy Dimensions felt extremely high, and without a map to guide me, I eventually lost patience trying to explore every path in the ridiculously long dungeons and started beelining for the exit. I probably missed some good loot that way, but it was necessary for me to keep my sanity. Another problem I had was also partially my fault due to playing on an emulator, but it was the controls. I was playing a touchscreen game on my computer, and while I was able to map a joystick to move around the overworld, it still felt weird having to switch over to a mouse whenever I entered combat or browsed a menu. The last problem I had was how constricted the exploration felt for most of the game. This was also probably a limitation of being a mobile game, but for most of my playthrough, I felt like I was being strictly led from town to dungeon to town through very small open areas clearly marked on a minimap with little opportunity to veer off course. It wasn’t until the very end of the game that I was finally given an airship and a WORLD MAP to go wherever I wanted. That’s right, the game didn’t even give me a map to help traverse until like 50 hours in which was insane.

This review sounds like one big rant, and I actually decided to lower my score by half a point as a result of writing it, but you know what they say: fans make the harshest critics. Despite everything I said above, I still really liked this game. Some of the characters are genuinely enjoyable. I especially loved Alba and her increasingly ridiculous ways she praised herself as well as Argy, the kind-hearted if not socially awkward amnesiac robot. The story structure was also unique and well-done. The party was split between the Warriors of Light and the Warriors of Darkness in their respective worlds and you would switch between those worlds throughout the game before finally reuniting in the last chapter. Each sub-chapter introduced a new job by having a new character join the party who was already fluent with that job so you could see what it was capable of to decide if you wanted to invest job points into learning it on one of your permanent characters. This also led to most of the combat being carried out in a party of five which had only been done up to this point in Final Fantasy IV, which was a fun twist. I think I can finally say I have a grip on the ATB system introduced in that game. One of my favorite parts of long RPGs is towards the end when I feel super powerful after mastering the combat system and leveling up all the characters and this game nailed that feeling. If you aren’t put off by old-school Final Fantasy design or touchscreen controls, I wholeheartedly recommend all JRPG fans at least try this game out. It is an underrated game in the series in my opinion.

Time to beat (Main) - 72h:31m
Rating – 7.5/10

Stats

Final Fantasy Dimensions has shot up to my most played game this year, blowing Death Howl completely out of the water. I’m surprised it took this long for an RPG to take the top spot. This may end up being the longest game I play this year since I think Final Fantasy VI is a shorter experience. Moving on to purchases, you can clearly see the low activity compared to previous months. Just to reiterate, I think this is the ideal scenario. I don’t need more games, I just find it hard to ignore good bundle deals when I see them. Lastly, July marked the third straight month of gametime increase. It still didn’t quite reach the height of February, but it’s pretty darn close and is still a lot of time to spend gaming. More months like this, please!

Conclusion/Upcoming

A month with high gametime and low acquisitions is an ideal month in my book. I paused my Game Pass subscription for most of the month since Final Fantasy Dimensions isn’t part of the service, but I restarted it again towards the end to start VI. After VI, I’m going to take a break from Final Fantasy for a while. I still have plans to playthrough the series, just not anytime soon. I’ll continue playing through Game Pass games for the foreseeable future. My goal for August is to finish up Final Fantasy VI which is very doable. If a short enough game is announced to leave Game Pass in August, I’ll prioritize that. Otherwise, I think I’ll continue my Balatro playthrough and see how far I can get there. It’s been a while since I’ve played it, so I’ll be a little rusty. Once I get my fill of that game, I’ll move on to Minishoot' Adventures and then Little Rocket Lab. There will probably be another session or two of Tales of Destiny as well. Anyway, that’s all from me. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 4,443 (+70)

Monthly Update #18: June 2026

We’ve officially hit summer now, my least favorite season. It’s so hot 🥵 I know, I’ll stay inside and play video games!

Game Acquisitions

Yet another month with a ton of game bundle purchases. I guess I won’t be slowing down on that front after all. I even redeemed the June Humble Choice, my first Choice redemption since last October. Octopath Traveler II was too good to pass up, and Life is Strange was in my wishlist. There’s a lot of variety in my acquisitions this month. Octopath Traveler II is probably the highest profile game here and the one I’m looking forward to the most.

# of Games: 89

Total Money Spent: $93.50

Price/Game: $1.05

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

# of Games YTD: 518

Total Money Spent YTD: $368.15

Price/Game: $0.71

Game Recaps

The first couple weeks of the month were dedicated to finishing up Final Fantasy V. It’s the longest game in the series so far, and my favorite by far. I’ve heard great things about VI though so maybe it will be dethroned quickly. Before that though, my next game in the series I decided to play is Final Fantasy Dimensions, a mobile spinoff inspired by V. I’ve heard it’s a long one but worth playing. I’m not too far in yet so I don’t want to form a definitive opinion. It’s OK so far, but it controls weird due to playing on an Android emulator on PC and I’m sorely missing the quality of life features from the Pixel Remasters like quick save, dungeon maps, and being able to turn off encounters. I’m also not a fan of having to spend job points to continue leveling up jobs. I’m worried I’ll pick the wrong jobs and end up wasting a bunch of points and making the game harder than it needs to be. Hopefully that won’t be the case and I’m able to get through it. I just made it to the World of Darkness in Chapter 2 so I’m still pretty early.

I had a couple co-op gaming sessions of Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut as well. We finally have a full party! Fuller than full actually, since there’s one person on the sidelines providing passive perks which is an interesting mechanic. I practiced a little bit with one of the new characters since he unlocked a more powerful heal arte and I’ve been mostly playing as a healer. The arte is really expensive and time-consuming to cast in the heat of battle due to the CC combat system so it’s really hard to pull off which severely limits his ability to heal. My co-op partner instantly latched on to the latest party member though due to him being used to playing a magic user in Tales of Phantasia. I’m proud of him being flexible like that due to this game being harder than most he’s played since he isn’t much of a gamer. In the story, we just made it to the desert continent and met the corrupt bishop Greybum who stole a powerful magical artifact. We’re about 10 hours in so still pretty early here too.

After beating Final Fantasy V, I decided I was going to let my Game Pass subscription lapse since Dimensions isn’t on the service, so I didn’t want to have it active if I wasn’t using it. Before it ran out, I got a couple sessions of Balatro in. It was fun enough, and I managed to complete White Stake difficulty for the first three decks. Anyone in the know would say I’ve barely even scratched the surface, so I’ll probably get back to it at some point after beating Final Fantasy Dimensions and VI. Before I could start my third session of the game though, Microsoft announced the games leaving Game Pass at the end of the month and Volcano Princess was on the list. That one was pretty high up on my list of Game Pass games to play so I played through it right away. I didn’t record my gameplay for that since it played mostly like a visual novel which probably wouldn’t be very exciting to watch.

Lastly, I played a handful of shorter games that I wasn’t expecting to play. These were emulated games that I’m continuing to slowly test and add to my backlog but ended up playing a little more than I meant to. The first of these emulated games was Dungeon Clawler, which you may have noticed was one of the games I just acquired. Android was having a sale for a bunch of games for 10 cents, and I have tons of Google Play credit to spend so they’re basically free (the other two purchases being Hitman: Sniper and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated). It’s a roguelite somewhat similar to Slay the Spire except with much less depth and a unique combat mechanic where you use a claw machine to pull the items out the inflict damage or boost defense and hope for the best. It seems OK so far, I ended up playing one run which took almost two hours, and I failed around 70% of the way to the final boss. Since I meant to just be testing the game instead of playing it, I’ll get back to it at a (much later) date. The other two emulated games I unexpectedly played (and beat!) were the Bust a Groove games for the PS1. Like the other emulated games, I meant to just play one level to make sure it works before moving on, but it turns out the whole campaign per character has to be beaten in one sitting with no saves so that’s what I ended up doing. I played through both games as Kelly on normal difficulty. I was originally planning on keeping them in the backlog to play as other characters, but I decided that the gameplay was barebones enough that I didn’t feel like playing it over and over again. Here are links to every game I played and recorded or uploaded to my YouTube channel in June. Please note that the first part of Tales of Destiny is going live on July 7^th, Balatro on July 31^st, and Final Fantasy Dimensions on August 21^st so there will be a bit of a wait for those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game Reviews

FINAL FANTASY V

It seems that the jump in quality I was expecting from the NES to SNES transition came one title later than expected. While I’ve enjoyed each game in the Final Fantasy series a little more than the previous, and that continues to hold true with this entry, I didn’t like Final Fantasy IV as much as I thought I would. It was still a good game, just not the generational leap I thought it would be. The ATB system did fundamentally change how combat works, but I struggled with it and didn’t see much merit over the traditional turn-based system of the previous games. Final Fantasy V, however, combined the ATB system from IV with the job system from III to change things up. While I didn’t care for either system on their own, combining them together somehow elevated both to create the most fun I’ve had playing Final Fantasy by far.

While Final Fantasy III technically introduced the job system to the series, V is often the one credited with turning it into something special. Now that I’ve played both, I can see why. In simple terms, jobs in Final Fantasy are like classes in other games. You have basic melee units like the knight, basic magic units like the white and black mages, and more specialized units with unique abilities like the dragoon or geomancer. The job system in III was extremely underbaked in my opinion, which is understandable since it was on the NES and the first game in the series to have it. There were a lot of jobs in that game, but I felt that they were either completely useless, designed for one extremely specific scenario (i.e. use it for one boss and then never again), or replaced by a job introduced later that was better in every way. V fixed all these issues by making every job viable as well as unlocking new abilities for every job as you levelled them up and transferring those abilities to other jobs, so everyone was essentially dual-class. It was so fun unlocking new abilities in one job and using those abilities to enhance other jobs. I felt like I was able to spec everyone out to my specific playstyle which helped me feel closer to the characters oddly enough. On top of that, when some harder late-game bosses demanded a different strategy to defeat them, I didn’t feel like I was being punished for only playing a certain way up to that point. I could assign a job to a character who has never used that job before and still reap most of the benefits from doing so while also keeping the ability of one of their other jobs they were working on, so I didn’t feel like I was starting from scratch.

The depth of the job system was the main driving factor for my enjoyment of the game, but that’s only one side of the coin. The characters were another highlight. They each have their own personalities and desires, and I think the smaller cast helped put each one into the spotlight a bit more. The story was classic Final Fantasy and nothing too special. The crystals that were protecting the world have been destroyed (the crystal shards actually represent the different jobs which is fun) and it’s up to the warriors of light to band together to stop the bad guy from engulfing the world in darkness. Individual character moments were good (Gilgamesh in particular was a joy), but the overall conflict was pretty meh. There were still a couple moments where I couldn’t figure out where to go, but for the most part the game directs you pretty well. The final dungeon dragged on for too long, and that unfortunately seems to be consistent for the series so far. It wasn’t as egregious as previous entries though, and the ability to turn off encounters and quick save that the Pixel Remasters introduced made it less annoying than it could’ve been. Overall, having now played I-V, I can confidently say that V is by far my favorite Final Fantasy game, and I highly recommend any JRPG fan who hasn’t played it yet to give it a shot.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 36h:33m
Rating – 8.5/10

Volcano Princess

Volcano Princess is a self-described “parenting-simulator-RPG adventure” where you are tasked with raising a daughter in a medieval fantasy town from infancy to 18, although most of the game takes place in her teenage years. I put the descriptor in quotes because I don’t fully agree with it; the gameplay is mostly in a visual novel format. The general gameplay loop consists of walking around town talking to people to raise your relationship level with them and participating in various side activities to raise your stats and make money like horse racing, cooking, and working a job. If you’ve played other life simulators like Growing Up, you’ll know the gist of what you’re getting into here.

I found the gameplay of Volcano Princess to be extremely repetitive. Everyday plays out in almost the exact same way: wake up, greet any visitors, talk to your daughter, send her on her way to talk to everyone in town, complete a couple side activities, go home, schedule classes, go to bed, repeat. There’s hardly ever anything thrown in to break up the monotony and even then, it takes the form of more reading and a couple different side activities. On top of that, the English translation leaves a lot to be desired. It’s legible most of the time, but sometimes I had to look up a guide just to understand what the game was trying to tell me.

You would think a visual novel with a lot of repetition and a mediocre translation would be a dealbreaker, and it might be for some people. Despite those issues, I couldn’t help but grow attached to a couple of the characters. I was interested in seeing how some of their stories played out. Some of the side activities level up the more you do them and I was just intrigued enough to see what the late game versions of those looked like (spoiler alert: they were mostly disappointing). I think the most impressive part of this game though is the artwork. The character designs all looked good, but the CGs looked phenomenal. I wish more of the game could’ve been presented in that style. It’s clear the game is meant to be played through multiple times because there are almost 100 endings and you can carry over some stats into new game plus to keep going. I can’t imagine wanting to go through the game more than once though, the repetition for one playthrough was more than enough. I’m probably scoring this higher than I should, but there were just enough positive aspects to warrant placing it slightly higher than the standard 7/10 “good” game. If you already know you enjoy life sims and anime art, you’ll probably like this and it’s an easier recommendation. If you aren’t, Volcano Princess likely won’t change your mind.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 20h:40m
Rating – 7.5/10

Bust a Groove

Bust a Groove is a PS1-era rhythm game with the core premise of the campaign being 1v1 dance battles. The gameplay consists of hitting a series of directions to the beat of the music and finishing with pressing square or circle on the fourth beat. Hitting multiple sets of notes in a row increases your combo which is necessary to score high enough to beat your opponent. Unlike scrolling music games like Guitar Hero or DDR, there’s not really any timing involved in hitting the directions and long as you get them all in before hitting the button on the fourth beat. As a result, it doesn’t feel much like the gameplay matches up with the music very well. Even worse, gameplay never evolves past this core concept which leads to a high degree of repetition despite the short runtime. There is a gameplay mechanic where you can press a different button on the fourth beat to dodge an attack from your opponent, but that mechanic is neither explained in the game nor necessary to beat the game on normal, so I did not engage with it.

On the plus side, the music is usually catchy, the environments and camera work can be fun, and the short CGI cutscenes for each character upon beating their campaigns are kinda fun to watch. I only beat the game with one character, but I looked up the other endings because there wasn’t enough variety in the gameplay to warrant playing the campaign over and over again. I wouldn’t recommend spending much money on this game if you plan on only playing it through once like I did. However, if the idea of playing over and over again with different characters and honing your skills through higher difficulties sounds appealing, I can see this being a more worthwhile purchase. Just know going in that there isn’t going to be a lot of depth.

Time to beat (Main) - 1h:1m
Rating – 6/10

Bust a Groove 2

Bust a Groove 2 is a PS1-era rhythm game that plays similarly to the first game. So much so, you can read through my review of that one and get the gist of what this game is about. There are a handful of differences between them though. In addition to dodging attacks by hitting a different button on the fourth beat, you also have two charges per dance battle to attack your opponent by hitting yet another button. Unlike the first game, I found it necessary to engage with these mechanics to beat the last few battles of the campaign on normal, despite the fact that they are still not explained in game. This added slightly more depth to the gameplay, but not enough to stave off the repetition. Second, as I was playing through the campaign, I noticed there were branching paths. I assume your performance dictates which path you take, but since I only played through once, it still felt just as linear as the first game. I was placed in the top path which allowed me to battle the secret boss at the end. The third major difference, and the biggest disappointment, is that the special character endings from the first game are completely removed. After I beat the game, it cut straight to credits and then back to the main menu. This would’ve been my main motivator to play through multiple times with different characters, so it’s a shame they’re gone. I found out after the fact that there are individualized character endings in the form of a TV show host spouting tasteless jokes and going over the character’s backstories in the original Japanese release, but they were all removed when the game was ported over to North America which is a shame.

This was a long-winded way of saying that both games in the Bust a Groove series are very similar. I played them both in one sitting a day apart and if I didn’t know any better, I could mistake them for being the same game. The music is still catchy, and the environments and camera work continue to be engaging, but the gameplay doesn’t evolve and the main incentive to play through the campaign multiple times with each character was completely stripped out. Even the final boss is the same in both games if you don’t count the secret boss. As such, my score and recommendation for this game is the same as the first one. If you only plan to play through it once to reach credits, don’t bother spending money on it. However, if you plan to hone your skills by playing on higher difficulties and want to see the different routes for each character, you might get more out of it. Just make sure to play the Japanese version of the game (which has an English dub) to see the original endings.

Time to beat (Main) - 1h:3m
Rating – 6/10

Stats

Final Fantasy V has catapulted itself to my second most played game so far this year. I suspect Final Fantasy Dimensions may be my most played game by the time I beat it, but it’s still too early to tell. My game spending continues to be elevated but averaging just over $1 per game shows that I’m still getting a lot of bang for my buck in my opinion. My gaming time for June continued to be on the higher end of average for me, which is nice, even if a lot of it was still spent on games that aren’t even in my backlog thanks to Game Pass. Unlike my spending, I hope this trend continues.

Conclusion/Upcoming

I can’t believe 2026 is already halfway done. Where is the time going? It’s been a somewhat productive gaming year for me as I’ve already beaten almost twice as many games as I did last year. Game Pass continues to be worth the $0 I’m spending on it since it’s allowing me to play higher quality games I wouldn’t’ve tried otherwise, even if I’m neglecting games in my backlog as a result. My plans for July will likely consist mostly of playing Final Fantasy Dimensions as I imagine it will take up most of my time. Since Game Pass is on hold, I’m not sure when I’ll resubscribe to it and if there will be a good enough game announced to be leaving the service that will cause me to resubscribe earlier than expected. That’s the nature of subscriptions though unfortunately. My current plan is to beat Final Fantasy Dimensions, then resubscribe and play any games announced to be leaving the service, then start on Final Fantasy VI. I have high hopes for that one, and it will be the last Final Fantasy game I play for quite some time, so I hope it’s as special as people say it is. That’s all for now, thanks for reading everyone!

Backlog total: 4,373 (+102)