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.
Finally caught up on all my weekly posts this one! Man, what
a journey that was. I spent all of Memorial Day weekend and then some just writing
and uploading videos. I suppose I could’ve just made one post and said I missed
a few but I didn’t want to leave anything out! Anyway, my Game Pass trial was
over by this point and I almost didn’t play anything. Fortunately my friend
came over on Sunday and we had possibly the longest gaming session we’ve ever
had. Woohoo!
Game Acquisitions
Another
decent haul, and all back to free again! A few Reddit trades, Steam/itch.io/Epic/Prime
freebies, and a couple more Steam family purchases. Deliver At All Costs was a
day one freebie on Epic too which is pretty rare. I’m particularly interested
in Thief 2 and Astalon from this selection.
# of Games: 14
Total Money Spent: $0
Price/Game: $0
Game Recaps
There it is, the mighty solid color pie
graph has returned, and it’s a whopping six hours! That’s right, we sat down
and played Tales of Phantasia for over SIX HOURS STRAIGHT. What an awesome day
that was. I didn’t get any other game time in since I was writing and editing
but that’s OK, I think this was more than enough. The bulk of the session was
going through the Moria Mine and Cave of Searing Sands, with some light detours
into Olive Village and Midgard. Check it out! These videos will be releasing
back to back June 22nd-27th so it may be a little while depending
on when you’re reading this.
TV/Movie Recaps
Here is everything I watched this week:
·Family Guy Season 23 Episode 13 (all caught up,
show ongoing)
·Arcane Season 2 Episode 9 (complete)
·Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix Season 1
Episodes 1-6 (complete?)
·Star Wars: Andor Season 2 Episodes 1-2 (still
watching, show ended)
·Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
I may not have completed any games this week but I did complete
a few shows and a movie franchise. Arcane is possibly my favorite show I’ve
watched in quite some time. Anyone in the mood for a stylistic animated show
that’s very dark and violent should check it out. Don’t worry if you know
nothing about League of Legends, I don’t know anything either and I still loved
the hell out of this. Continuing on to shows based on games, I watched the full
run of Ubisoft’s Captain Laserhawk where they basically took a bunch of their
game properties and mashed them together. We had Rayman, Rabbids, Splinter
Cell, Far Cry, and Beyond Good and Evil from what I remember, and there were
probably others too. It’s an animated show that absolutely did not take itself
seriously. I thought it was OK, nothing too special but it had its moments. I
put a question mark next to complete because there are still rumors that a
season 2 is coming, but it doesn’t look likely at this point. The show has not
been renewed or canceled and the last episode aired October 2023. Andor is off
to a decent start for its last season. I’m not liking it as much as season 1
but it’s still a great Star Wars show. I’m curious to see how they tie it into
Rogue One. I may need to watch the movie again after I finish this. Kingdom of
the Planet of the Apes marks the end of the Apes franchise for me. I watched
the original movie and the four modern movies. I ended up skipping the other
four classics and the failed 2001 reboot, I read none of them were really worth
watching. I looked up the recaps just in case there was anything important I
might’ve missed but I don’t think it was necessary. Overall, I really enjoyed
this movie franchise. I felt for the most part that each film was slightly
worse than the last but I liked all of them so I can’t complain.
Conclusion/Upcoming
And with that, my writing frenzy has (mostly) concluded.
Writing five posts in a row really takes a lot out of a person, and that’s
coming off the heels and editing and uploading 38 HOUR-LONG VIDEOS IN A ROW. This
blogging and YouTubing thing is way more work than I was expecting. Now I need
to start drafting up the May monthly post and this week’s post. The fun never
stops! I can actually say what I plan on doing for the coming week since it isn’t
over yet. I’ll be watching Andor all week, and will likely be finishing it this
weekend. This week’s movie is a big pivot from Planet of the Apes: Dog Man! I
hadn’t even heard of this movie but it’s from the same guy that made Captain
Underpants which I loved as a kid. I feel like I owe it to myself to see what
else he’s up to. It’s likely my friend is not coming over this week so any
gaming is unlikely. After I finish up what I can get done with the blog posts,
I’m gonna go back to Playnite emulator setup. This will probably take a few
more weeks so gaming will be put on the backburner again. Sorry about that! At
least now that I’m recording footage, you’ll still have an hour a day of
watching my gameplay even when I don’t have much to write about. The June post
should be going up within a couple days after this one, with the weekly
arriving a day later. Thanks for reading!
Going from 18 hours of gaming last week to only three and a
half this week is a hell of a whiplash. My Game Pass trial ended on Monday, but
I still managed to complete two games in that time. The rest of the week was
spent editing all the footage which was very time consuming. Thankfully the
edits are done and I’m uploading them as I type this (May 26th). By
the time this is posted, every video from my Game Pass trial should be uploaded
and scheduled to go public. There’s a lot to look forward to! Before I get to
the final two games, let’s look at my acquisitions for the week. And oh boy, we’ve
got a big one this time.
Game Acquisitions
24 whole
games this week, and a whopping $40 spent on them! This is roughly double what
I had spent on games so far this year, so I was going back and forth for a
while on this. The purchases were from Fanatical’s Platinum Collection - Build Your Own Bundle - May 2025
and Build Your Own Bento Bundle – Spring 2025.
In the end, even though this is a lot of money and the cost of game bundles is
going up in general along with everything else, the price per game is under $3
so I decided the value was still there. I also had a few good Reddit trades
like Haiku, Immortals of Aveum, and Nova Lands as well as a pretty big Epic giveaway
with Dead Island 2. A very fruitful week indeed for new games. Now I just need
to find the time to play them!
# of Games: 24
Total Money Spent: $40.08
Price/Game: $1.67
Game Recaps
A much smaller week than the last two,
and only two games played this time. I started off the week by finishing the
Slayers X game I started the day before. Not much else to say here that wasn’t
already said in my previous post or in my review below. The game continued to
be nonsensical to the end. Watch the finale here:
Premiere date: June 20th
Since I knew I was on my last day of Game
Pass and didn’t want a repeat of last week, I decided to finish it off with a
short game called Donut County. This is yet another short and simple game with talking
animals I played during the trial. The gameplay consists entirely of moving a
hole around different levels to gobble up random objects to get bigger and
solve simple puzzles before seeing some funny character interactions and moving
on to the next level. Short story even shorter, your raccoon friend was delivering
holes instead of donuts (see what they did there?) and accidentally sucked up
the whole town. Then he has to go to the Trash King (another raccoon) to beg to
return the town’s stuff lest he suck up his headquarters as well. My full thoughts
are in the review below. Enjoy my short two-part playthrough too:
Premiere date: June 19th
Premiere date: June 21st
Game Reviews
Slayers X: Terminal
Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer
This game is a boomer shooter parody that
plays heavily on 90s nostalgia. It starts with a monologue from the main
character talking about how he came up with the coolest game idea ever when he
was in school but lost the notes and never got to make it. Then he found the
notes and the whole game is basically his dream game where he’s the main
character and he’s so cool and kills the bad guys and is the most badass person
ever. The whole game was meant to be stupid and ridiculous as a joke, but I
feel that it translated into actually being stupid and not very fun. I
frequently got lost due to an unhelpful map and environmental clues to
progression that were apparently lost on me. The cutscenes were animated in a
super low resolution prerendered PS1 style that I felt fit the tone pretty
well. The shooting was surprisingly decent with a wide variety of weapons to
choose from. There were moments when I almost found myself having fun, until
the lack of ammo, direction, or obtuse level design reigned my enjoyment back in.
If you enjoy literal potty humor and have a fondness for FPS games of old, you
may find something to like here. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to fall into that
camp.
Time to beat
(Main) - 4h:40m Rating – 5.5/10
Donut County
Donut County is a short, simple, and
silly game with talking animals and holes that are mysteriously popping up and swallowing
the town. The gameplay consists entirely of moving a hole around different
levels to gobble up random objects to get bigger and solve simple puzzles
before seeing some funny character interactions and moving on to the next level.
You find out pretty quickly that your raccoon friend was delivering holes
instead of donuts (see what they did there?) and accidentally sucked up the
whole town in the process. He then has to go to the Trash King (another raccoon)
to beg to return the town’s stuff lest he suck up his headquarters as well.
There’s not much else to say about this
game. The game is only two hours long and about as simple as it gets save for a
final boss fight that might pose a challenge for younger players. The funny
skits between the townsfolk between levels is the star of the show here, I
think. I thought the writing was funny, so it scored higher for me. If you’re
looking for something more in depth or aren’t in the mood for something silly,
this short experience may not resonate with you.
Time to beat
(Main+Extras) - 2h:6m Rating – 7/10
TV/Movie Recaps
Here is everything I watched this week:
·Family Guy Season 23 Episode 12 (all caught up,
show ongoing)
·Arcane Season 2 Episodes 2-8 (complete)
·War for the Planet of the Apes
Looks like a lighter week for both games and TV. War for the
Planet of the Apes wasn’t as good as the first two movies of the modern trilogy
in my opinion, and there wasn’t really much war happening. Even so, I still
enjoyed my time with it. Arcane was an incredible watch all the way through. I
don’t think there was a single bad episode. Please make more shows in this
style!
Conclusion/Upcoming
And this my Game Pass trial has come to an end. I had a
great time with it but regret that I wasn’t able to play any longer games. If I
ever do get an extended subscription again, there are plenty of RPGs on the
service I’d be interested in. Most of this week and the following week were
spent video editing hence the shorter play time. I still can’t tease my “upcoming”
week since it has already past, so I once again want to thank you for sticking
with me while I catch up on my blog. Thanks for reading!
This was my only full calendar week of Game Pass, and I certainly
took advantage. This is definitely the most time I’ve put into gaming in a
single week for a very long time. There were some good games and some not so
good games, but I definitely enjoyed my time overall. Before I get into that,
let’s see what I picked up this week.
Game Acquisitions
I claimed the
May Humble Choice this week 😊 Eiyuden Chronicle looks so good, and I picked up the
standalone prologue in a bundle a while ago so now I have both games to look
forward to! I also now have both Frogun games thanks to IGN Plus which sounds
like it will be part of Humble Choice moving forward. They also own How Long To
Beat which is interesting so hopefully nothing bad happens there. Shadow Gambit
looks like a fun stealth tactics game and Ultros looks like a good
metroidvania. The others were once again freebies and since I paid for the
annual Humble Choice plan in advance, I’m going to count this as another week
with no spending.
# of Games: 15
Total Money Spent: $0
Price/Game: $0
Game Recaps
Another week with four different games
played, including two completions! I started off the week with a full
playthrough of Mullet Madjack, which was by far my favorite game during the
Game Pass trial. It’s a roguelite FPS with a heavy 80s anime aesthetic that
borders on satire. My in-depth thoughts are in my review below but yeah, I
loved this game. Check out my full playthrough. All of these videos are
releasing in June so sorry if you’re reading this right away!
Premiere date: June 4th
Premiere date: June 6th
Premiere date: June 9th
Premiere date: June 13th
Premiere date: June 15th
The next game on the docket was another Tales of Phantasia session with my friend. We spent the entirety of our time in the capital city of Alvanista. We broke into the castle, fought the demon that was controlling the prince, bought some new artes for Arche and Cless, and listened to a beautiful piano performance before departing. Check it out!
Premiere date: June 11th
Premiere date: June 17th
After Tales of Phantasia was back to Game Pass with an interesting story-driven game called Road 96. I managed a full playthrough of this game this week as well. This was very much a walking simulator game similar to Life is Strange. The primary gameplay loop consists of ~15-minute scenarios where you walk around different environments, talk to people where your choices determine the ending you get, and either die or escape the tyrannical government and start over with the next person. My full thoughts are once again in the review below but the short of it is I thought the game was good but not great. Here's my full six-part playthrough. These parts are a little longer than my usual videos because each episode ended up being around an hour and 20 minutes and it seemed weird to break up the episodes across multiple videos.
Premiere date: June 3rd
Premiere date: June 5th
Premiere date: June 8th
Premiere date: June 12th
Premiere date: June 14th
Premiere date: June 18th
The last game I played this week was a ridiculous boomer shooter parody game called Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer. Before you ask, I am aware that vengeance is spelled incorrectly here, they did that on purpose. This is a game that plays heavily on 90s nostalgia. It starts with a monologue from the main character talking about how he came up with the coolest game idea ever when he was in school but lost the notes and never got to make it. Then he found the notes and the whole game is basically his dream game where he’s the main character and he’s so cool and kills the bad guys and is the most badass person ever. I didn’t quite beat it this week, so I don’t want to spoil my final thoughts. Here’s the first three parts of the four-part playthrough. The plot, like the rest of the game, is non-sensical so I don’t even know how to summarize what happened here. You’ll just have to watch to see for yourself.
Premiere date: June 7th
Premiere date: June 10th
Premiere date: June 16th
Game Reviews
Mullet Madjack
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 take damage, 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.
Time to beat
(Main+Extras) - 5h:29m Rating – 8.5/10
Road 96
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 too 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.
Time to beat
(Main+Extras) - 8h:28m Rating – 7/10
TV/Movie Recaps
Here is everything I watched this week:
·Arcane Season 1 Episode 5-Season 2 Episode 1
(completed)
·Family Guy Season 23 Episode 11 (all caught up,
show ongoing)
·My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 2 Episode
4 (still watching, show ended)
·Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Continuing my trek through the Planet of the Apes series.
Dawn was another pretty good entry. It was very different from the first movie
since almost the entire downfall of humanity happened between the movies which
was certainly a choice. Arcane continued to be phenomenal, and My Little Pony
was fine.
Conclusion/Upcoming
18 hours of game time and two completions in a single week!
I’m happy with that. It probably won’t happen again looking at my schedule, so
I appreciate the time I got to spend here. I played a couple of great games, a
good game, and a mediocre one. Not too bad. As with my previous post, the entire
following week has already passed by so I can’t really say what’s upcoming
without spoiling anything. You’ll just have to read my next post to find out.
Thanks for reading!
