August 24-30, 2025
As you may be able to tell from the title, I tested out a bunch of Castlevania and Metroid games this week. I’ll get into that in the emulation section of game acquisitions.
Game Acquisitions
Mostly giveaways and Steam Family purchases as usual, but I did decide to spend some Steam wallet funds on Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. I already own Max Payne 1-3, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and Control (with Alan Wake II in my wishlist), so I figured I might as well complete the set. It was only 96 cents after tax, and I have over $30 of Steam credit from selling trading cards, so I figured it was probably worth it. Afterplace looks like an interesting experience as well, I’m curious to see how that one plays.
# of Games: 8
Total Money Spent: $0
Price/Game: $0
I’ve played a few metroidvania games over the years, and I’ve enjoyed most of them. I came to the realization that I’ve never actually played the origin of the genre, that being Metroid and Castlevania. I was already planning on playing the Metroid Prime trilogy, and Epic gave away the Castlevania Anniversary Collection a while back. I decided to broaden my horizons and add all the major games from both franchises to my list to really experience them. I’m really excited about the Metroid games, but I’m more hesitant about Castlevania. The 3D games I tested out seemed fine, but the 2D ones were proving to be quite challenging. The Dracula X Chronicles in particular was proving to be a hassle. There are a couple games included in this package, and I found out that you have to play through a couple stages of Rondo of Blood and do a specific thing in Stage 2 to unlock a special Stage 3, then get a certain powerup in that stage to find a secret collectible to unlock Symphony of the Night. I was having a hell of a time getting through Stage 2 and 3’ to unlock the other game and made liberal use of save states to do so. I imagine this will be a common experience for me as I make my way through this series.
Apart from exploring the origins of metroidvanias, you can see that I also added the Breath of Fire JRPG quintology. I went back and forth on which ones from this series I should include. A lot of people say to skip 1, 2, and Dragon Quarter, remarking that 3 and 4 are the only ones worth playing. I was also debating if I should add Breath of Fire IV since it’s technically available on PC and my general rule is to not emulate anything where the best version can be purchased and played natively on PC. I decided to add 1 and II since I found some fan-made QOL improvements which should allow me to experience the origins of the series for myself. I ended up adding IV when I found out that the version available on GOG is censored, so I wouldn’t get the full experience if I purchased it through there. Dragon Quarter has a mixed reception, but some people love it, and the roguelike nature of the game seems like it could be interesting. As a result, I decided to add the whole series.
I’ve got a couple other random standalone games tested and added to my backlog as well. I’ve heard great things about 13 Sentinels and was surprised to hear it never got a PC release. Conversely, I’ve literally never heard of Heavenly Sword before, but it looks like an OK PS3 launch title if nothing else.
TV/Movie Recaps
Here is everything I watched this week:
· Ironheart Season 1 Episodes 1-6 (completed)
· My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 3 Episode 6 (still watching, show ended)
· Eyes of Wakanda Season 1 Episodes 1-2 (still watching, show ended)
· Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Not much to say about this week. Ironheart was a mediocre Marvel TV show, an increasingly common occurrence unfortunately. My Little Pony was alright, but this episode was just setup for the final season. Eyes of Wakanda seems like a neat miniseries that I’ll probably forget about shortly after finishing it. Harry Potter, as the name implies, was only part one of a two-part finale. Was this the movie that kickstarted a bunch of franchises splitting their final part in two for no reason? I hate it when companies do that nowadays. The movie itself was fine, but it very much felt like half a story.
Conclusion/Upcoming
This was a bit of an odd week. I was hoping to get some Tales of Phantasia in, but no dice. That’s two hangouts in a row without playing ☹ We were just too busy with other stuff I guess. For some reason, I feel like I didn’t get a lot of emulation testing in either, but that might be because most of it was spent on just three franchises. There’s a lot of games in those franchises though, so I still got a lot done. Metroid: Other M in particular took forever to get working, since I had to figure out how to emulate a bunch of motion controls with my Xbox controller. That’s always a pain to pull off. The emulation list is very slowly going down. I was at 418 with my previous update and am sitting at 413 now. Like I mentioned in the last update, it didn’t go down much since a lot of series were being tested instead of individual games. That might change this week though. I have quite a few individual games or short series to get through before my next big series, that being the colossal Pokémon franchise. That will probably take at least a whole week just on its own, I have 26 games in my play order collection for that one 😅
My plan for this week will be similar to most recent weeks. I’ve got the other two episodes of Eyes of Wakanda to watch, which will likely be done the day I post this. After that, I can finally get to Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld which will be another quick watch at six third-length episodes. After that will be Raised by Wolves while I wait for Alien: Earth and Futurama Season 10 to finish airing next month. Once Eyes of Wakanda is done, I don’t really have any pressing shows I’m looking forward to in the near term. Raised by Wolves will get me through the week though, so I’ll cross that bridge in the next update maybe. I’ll also be watching the final Harry Potter movie on Friday so that I can finally cross that franchise off my list. Will I get to any Tales of Phantasia this week? Only time will tell. I do have an exciting update for gaming though that I haven’t alluded to yet. I’ll bring it up in my monthly post for August which should be up tomorrow. Have I piqued your interest 👀? See you all tomorrow!
Backlog total: 3,501 (+27)
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