Monthly Update #4: I’m Back!

April 2025

I feel like I owe an explanation for my brief absence that went on longer than I expected. At the end of my last post, I mentioned that I would be postponing my next post to take full advantage of my weeklong Game Pass trial. Well, that weeklong trial turned into a fortnight (not the game, this used to be a word people used!). As I was sitting down to finish up Mullet Madjack on the last day of the trial, I got a message saying my trial was expired…tomorrow. I was near the end of the game and suddenly my access to play it was cut off. I contacted Microsoft support to explain the situation and they gave me another week! So the first delay was due to the length of my trial being doubled.

The second delay was due to underestimating just how much time it would take to edit and upload all the videos. I spent like two weeks compiling and editing the literal 37 HOURS OF FOOTAGE I captured over the course of two weeks. It was quite the daunting task, but I got it done. Even as I type this, I’m still working on uploading it all to my channel. I’m trying to keep my videos to roughly an hour each, and I don’t want to bombard people with multiple videos a day, so I’ll only be uploading once daily. That means that, at least for a little while, the video links I post in my blog will go to videos that will be showing as private until their scheduled premiere date. But hey, that will give you a reason to come back  to my blog (or channel) everyday to see what new video is available! I’ll put premiere dates next to any videos that haven’t gone public at the time of posting so you guys know when to expect them. Since I’m behind on my blog posts, I’ll try my best to get those out every day or two until I catch up. No promises though, I have a lot of writing to do including several reviews and recaps so it may take a while. Maybe I’ll even get the May monthly post out in time! We’ll see.

Now with all the blog housekeeping out of the way, I just want to say that my two week Game Pass trial was very fruitful. Probably a bit of a spoiler, but I beat six whole games during that timeframe! It was nice to finally be beating games again after not even touching a single-player game for over a month. I haven’t played Torment: Tides of Numenera since March 23^rd, but I’m not giving up on it! It’s probably gonna be a while until I get back to it because I still haven’t finished setting up the emulators on my PC yet. I can’t even call it a new PC at this point, it’s been fully put together and used almost daily for weeks now. Once I catch up on my blog posts, finish the YouTube uploads, and have Playnite set up just the way I like, I’ll start it up again. It’ll be months between sessions so I’ll be very rusty, and I definitely have no memory of what I was doing. But I will get back to it eventually, I promise. On that note, I did make sure to continue tracking my playtime and game acquisitions during my hiatus, so let’s move on to that!

Game Acquisitions

A decent haul this month, and only $4.43 spent for all of them! 1000xRESIST and Wavetale were the only purchases this month. Everything else was a combination of Prime and Reddit giveaways, Steam family purchases, and itch.io freebies. I’m particularly interested in 1000xRESIST, Legacy of Kain, Dreams of Aether, and Thief. I played the 2014 Thief reboot but the general consensus is that the originals are better. We’ll see how well a game from the 90s holds up.

# of Games: 29

Total Money Spent: $4.43

Price/Game: $0.15

Game Recaps

This only reflects the beginning of my Game Pass trial. Still, I managed to beat one game and played two others which is not bad. Nothing was played the 1^st through the 4^th, the 6^th through the 26^th, or the 28^th which is crazy. If it wasn’t for Game Pass, I wouldn’t’ve played any single-player games at all! I really need to work on that. Another spoiler alert, but weekly post coming out right after this one has more game time than the entire month of April so look forward to that! Here are the playlists for the games I played:

 

 

Game Reviews

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

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 did struggle 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 that 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.

Time to beat (Completionist) - 2h:56m
Rating – 8/10

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last month:

·       Shadow and Bone Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2 Episode 8 (complete)

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episodes 7-10 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 2 Episodes 1-3 (still watching, show ended)

·       Black Mirror Season 7 Episodes 1-6 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       Arcane Season 1 Episode 1 (complete)

·       Moana

·       Moana 2

·       Sonic the Hedgehog 3

·       Red vs. Blue: Restoration

·       Planet of the Apes

The status in parenthesis for these shows is going by the day of writing which is May 26^th, not when this post was originally supposed to go up. The movies this month were hit or miss, but the shows were all pretty good. Moana 1 was a rewatch, I love that movie. Moana 2 was OK but a disappointment by comparison. Sonic 3 was maybe the worst of the Sonic movies so far. Red vs. Blue: Restoration was the movie that finally ended the long-running web series from Rooster Teeth which was subsequently shut down (and recently resurrected, we’ll see if anything comes of that). Planet of the Apes was better than I expected, and the costumes were really good for a movie from the 60s. Moving onto the shows, it looks like I watched the entirety of Shadow and Bone and Black Mirror Season 7 in April. Shadow and Bone was pretty good, although it ended on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Black Mirror was an interesting watch as always. I can’t exactly say it’s a fun watch because that show is consistently pretty depressing. My Little Pony is OK, it doesn’t really hold a candle to Friendship is Magic though. I barely squeaked in starting Arcane but I loved that show. I can’t wait to see what else they do in that universe.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Again, sorry for my extended leave of absence. It’s difficult to get back on track after a few weeks away. April was a pretty light month all things considered. May is almost over so I’m not sure what I can put in my upcoming section that won’t be revealed shortly anyway. Thank you for sticking with me. I’ll be posting to my blog periodically throughout the week to hopefully get caught up before June hits. I’ll make sure to keep a running tally of my total backlog so I can include it in my June monthly. Thank you all for reading, and expect my next post tomorrow!