Weekly Update #39: Just Emulating

September 21-27, 2025

Didn’t get to Tales of Phantasia this week but made a decent amount of progress with emulation testing. This will be a shorter update as a result.

Game Acquisitions

I made another purchase this week, it was Fanatical’s cheapest bundle offering of 5/$3. I technically got six games since one of them was a dual pack so a really good value overall. Little Witch in the Woods was yet another Steam family purchase along with Arcade Spirits (they’ve been buying a lot lately!) and it looks super cute. The rest were giveaways as usual.

# of Games: 10

Total Money Spent: $3

Price/Game: $0.30

I had a very productive testing weekend. A lot of JRPG series here. Before my emulation research I had never heard of any of these except Dark Cloud and Parasite Eve and now I’m really looking forward to games like Arc the Lad and Jeanne d’Arc. I was enjoying Jade Cocoon 2 also while testing, may have gotten carried away by putting over an hour into it 😅

This is officially the furthest zoom level in Playnite. I may need to start stitching pictures together soon. Almost at 200 games tested! 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Pokémon Concierge Season 1 Episodes 1-8 (complete)

·       My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 3 Episodes 3-4 (complete)

·       LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy Season 2 Episodes 1-4 (complete)

·       Marvel’s Zombies Season 1 Episode 1 (still watching, show ended)

·       Happy Gilmore

A lot of short series this week, and a movie rewatch with Happy Gilmore. I don’t think I’ve seen that movie since I was a teenager though, so it’s been quite a while. Pokémon Concierge was absolutely adorable, and I encourage any Pokémon fan to go out and watch it. LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy Season 2 was basically more “Fun Cameos: The Show” which was fine but not a lot of substance there. Still funny at times so a mild recommendation for Star Wars fans. My Little Pony: Make Your Mark officially marks (😜) the end of the 3D portion of the show, now I only have the 2D portion Tell Your Tale left. It was abruptly canceled but the fans dug up the rest of the episodes ranging from mostly done to animatics only, so it’ll be a weird ending. The “finale” (episode 3) was alright, although it still doesn’t hold a candle to Friendship is Magic. The “Christmas special” (episode 4) introduced a new setting and villain which I happen to know will be a reoccurring character in Tell Your Tale. We’ll see if she ends up being more compelling than an evil alicorn.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Another slow week this week, just slowly whittling away at this emulation thing. I was at 382 lines and am sitting at 369 now. I did end up redeeming four months of PC Game Pass, but they came as codes that don’t expire until a year from now or later so no rush there. There are rumors that the ability to redeem Game Pass directly with Microsoft Rewards points is going away at the end of the month in favor of just buying Xbox gift cards which will make everything more expensive. As a result, I decided to cash in the points I accumulated just in case. Hopefully this doesn’t derail my plans just as I started getting in the groove of earning points. I think Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will be my first game on the platform; I really don’t want to miss that before it leaves the service.

Plans for next week will include more short shows and the Happy Gilmore sequel. I’ve got Alien: Earth, Futurama, and Marvel’s Zombies coming up next which will probably take more than a week to get through. On the gaming front, it’s probably going to be the usual with possible Phantasia and more emulation stuff. Now that I’ve got the Game Pass codes ready to go, it is making me want to actually start playing games again. I might bite the bullet sometime soon. Anyway, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,606 (+32)

Weekly Update #38: A Cold Day in Phantasia

September 14-20, 2025

Another pretty slow week for me. I got some more Tales of Phantasia time in, but minimal emulation testing due to discovering texture packs. More on that below.

Game Acquisitions

This is the least number of new games I’ve gotten in quite a while. No purchases and only a few giveaways. It’s nice that I have the whole FATE series through Prime freebies now. Hades is obviously the big standout here, I’m super excited to try that game out. I was thinking about buying it myself, but a Steam family member bought it instead.

# of Games: 5

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

Like I said, not a lot of testing got done this week. I discovered that there are passionate communities filled with people who mod games that run through emulators. I already knew ROM hacks were a thing, but I didn’t know that you could improve the graphics of emulated games through the use of texture packs. I spent several hours researching which emulators support them and downloaded a few. They take up so much space, I had to move some of my other files to an external drive. I finished retesting all the games I already tested after applying these packs, then started on new games where I’ll be able to test both them and their mod/texture packs simultaneously. As you can see, I didn’t make a ton of progress on that front. I decided to make testing any game I found a texture pack for a priority. I find it interesting how some console emulators support texture packs while others don’t. Why can the NES and N64 use them but not the SNES? Why can the Xbox 360 emulator support mods while the OG Xbox emulator can’t? So many questions. 

Game Recaps

Another week, another Tales of Phantasia session in. It was shorter than the last one, but we still got a lot done. We made it to the end of the ice cave and fought the Fenrir Beast. A super tough fight and the only one so far to take us three attempts. We did it though, then managed to make our way to the Ninja Village to recruit the last party member Suzu. This involved going back to Euclid to fight in the arena again until we met Suzu’s parents and took them out since they’re being mind controlled by Dhaos. Check out our playthrough! 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Raised by Wolves Season 2 Episodes 2-8 (complete)

·       Ghostbusters Frozen Empire

A slow week on the TV front too. Raised by Wolves was an interesting sci-fi show. VERY heavy religious undertones in the second season to complement the battle between the atheists and Sol worshippers. I think this is a show worth watching if you don’t mind the smaller scope and minimal worldbuilding. I feel like it could have benefitted from having its ideas fleshed out more, but I still enjoyed it. It felt like things were leading up to a third season and many questions were left unanswered, but the show was canceled so there’s minimal resolution unfortunately. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire was much better than the reviews led me to believe. I really liked it, even though it feels like Bill Murray really doesn’t want to be doing it anymore. The design for the big bad ghost was cool too, and I liked how one of the characters was a ghost that was just a normal person who conversed with one of the main cast. It was a refreshing change of pace from the over-the-top cartoony design of most of the ghosts.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Still no news on the Game Pass front. I’m still accumulating points daily and am very slowly assembling a spreadsheet of all the games I’m interested in from the catalog. After that’s done, I’m not sure how I want to tackle the list. Maybe I’ll go for third-party games in my wishlist first, then go from highest rated to lowest (the opposite of my usual approach) since there’s a chance the games will leave before I get to them. Microsoft published games are permanent on the service though so no rush there. That means Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is on the far back burner. I really want to play Expedition 33 so I may move that to the top of the list, who knows. So many possibilities!

For this week, I’m gonna watch a couple of new shows after finishing Raised by Wolves. Pokémon Concierge, Lego Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy Season 2, and Futurama season 10 are on my shortlist which are all fairly quick watches. Alien: Earth is wrapping up this week as well so maybe it will finally be time to jump into that. On the gaming front, no plans other than Tales of Phantasia and emulation stuff. I had 399 lines left in my emulation text file and am at 382 now. I think we’re getting close to the end of Phantasia. We’re collecting the pieces needed to unlock the final dungeon, although there is still a ton of side content we haven’t done. Anyway, that’s enough for now. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,574 (+12)

Weekly Update #37: The Future Sucks

September 7-13, 2025

The title is a reference to Tales of Phantasia; I’m not trying to make some profound statement about the state of the world or anything. ANYWAY, typical week this week. I bought some more games, played a little Tales, and did some more emulation testing. Let’s get into it!

Game Acquisitions

Discounty Digimon World were Steam family purchases, Picklock and Reverse Crawl were Reddit trades, Subterrain was an Amazon freebie, and Fallout Equestria: Remains was a Steam freebie. The other 10 games were part of the Build Your Own Killer Bundle on Fanatical. Only $1 each, not bad! I’m especially looking forward to Chernobylite finally hitting this price point, but Aura of Worlds, Everholm, Soda Crisis, The Black Grimoire, and The Signifier could be hidden gems as well. The Black Grimoire is advertised as being like a single-player RuneScape, which is dangerous for someone who lost six years of their life to that game as a kid.

# of Games: 16

Total Money Spent: $9.99

Price/Game: $0.62

Like I mentioned last week, some of these are part of the Sega Genesis Classics Collection which has been delisted from sale. A pleasant surprise as that means I didn’t have to download and test them individually. I’m not sure how I’m feeling about Sin and Punishment. It’s a rail shooter which is not a genre I’m super familiar with, and the N64 game frankly controls like ass. I played through the tutorial and immediately set it to easy afterward when testing the first level. Here’s hoping that’ll be enough to get through it. Besides those, there’s a lot of classic RPGs here which I’m really looking forward to.

Game Recaps

Another almost three-hour Phantasia session! We spent over half of it just talking to people in Alvanista and Freezekiel much to the dismay of my co-op partner. Look, sometimes RPGs have a lot of talking instead of a lot of combat, alright? We spent the other part of the session in the ice caves below Fenrir Church. We decided to do it the hard way by forgoing fire charms and just having Minty heal us every few seconds. We finally made it to a save point, which is hopefully near the end but man, this has been a rough dungeon so far. The enemies aren’t even that hard, it’s just the winding layout and cold damage. I’m not sure if we’re going to go to the volcanic place next or knock out some side stuff. We’ll see! I really want to get the secret party member in the ninja village. Check out our playthrough! 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Raised by Wolves Season 1 Episode 5-Season 2 Episode 1 (still watching, show ended)

·       My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 4 Episodes 1-2 (still watching, show ended)

·       Jurassic World Rebirth

Raised by Wolves is pretty good, although I’m not totally loving the multitude of flashbacks and the direction some of the characters are going. The premise is cool, but everything seems so small in scale, and everything takes place in one little area. It opened up in season 2 so we’ll see if that improves it. I accidentally screwed up the My Little Pony viewing order last week. Generation 5 consisted of the movie which acts as the pilot, the 3D show Make Your Mark, and the 2D show Tell Your Tale. It’s all the same continuity and sometimes both shows play off of each other (more specifically Tell Your Tale seems to reference Make Your Mark at times). I accidentally watched the Tell Your Tale episode that recaps the Make Your Mark finale which I haven’t seen yet. Oh well, not like the show is too deep anyway. It’s a shame it got canceled so abruptly while they were still producing and airing the episodes. This didn’t get nearly the love Friendship is Magic got. Hopefully the generation premiering next year is more cohesive. I thought Jurassic World was done, but I guess they make too much money no matter how bad they are. I’ve seen all of them, so I felt obligated to watch this one. It was definitely one of the movies of all time. Entirely skippable, but not the worst thing in the world if you love dinosaurs.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Another update on the Game Pass front. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m earning enough points to keep the subscription going indefinitely assuming they don’t raise the redemption price again or reduce the number of points you can earn daily. As a result, I’m feeling more confident about getting to play everything in the catalog that I’m interested in unless it leaves the service. I’m very slowly cataloging all the games I’m interested in playing there, then will perhaps attempt redeeming when I’ve finished with that. Could be a couple weeks, could be a couple months. In the meantime, I’ll continue plugging away at the emulation project. Speaking of, I was at 399 lines left in my text file at my last update and am sitting at 388 now.

For this week, the plan is business as usual. I likely won’t finish Raised by Wolves so that will be my main TV focus. After the “masterpiece” that was Jurassic World Rebirth, I’m planning on watching another poorly reviewed sequel with Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. Another example of a series where I’ve watched all the other movies, so I feel obligated to watch this one. Wish me luck! On the gaming front, there might be more Tales of Phantasia but other than that, just more emulation testing. I’m getting close to the Pokémon series 👀 Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,562 (+31)

Weekly Update #36: Spending Money Again

August 31 - September 6, 2025

It’s been a while since I spent money out of pocket for games (over a month actually), but I finally broke down with a couple good deals this week. I also finally got some more Phantasia time in and continued plugging away at the emulation testing.

Game Acquisitions

Doing almost a complete 180, besides Baladins, none of these were freebies and I paid money for all of them. Quite unusual, but the September Humble Choice was lackluster, and the Epic and Amazon giveaways were repeats or games I already own. There were a couple good deals though, the first being the Humble Indie Likes & Lites Bundle. Even though I already own Going Under and Luck Be A Landlord, for $10, it still seemed like a great deal for everything else. I feel like it’s been even longer since I purchased a Humble Bundle, they tend to be niche or on the expensive side. I can’t argue with this one though. The other purchase was for a single game, an even greater rarity. I’ve had Alan Wake II Deluxe Edition in my wishlist since it came out and it finally hit a new low of $18.45 on GreenManGaming. I’d consider this an expensive purchase, but it’s normally $70 and I own all the other Remedy games, so I felt it necessary to complete the collection. I really need to get into this universe at some point.

# of Games: 9

Total Money Spent: $28.90

Price/Game: $3.21

And as always, here’s the games I tested and added to my backlog last week. There’s a bit of a mish mash here. ActRaiser is a SNES city-builder/platformer hybrid that got a remake a couple of years ago, but I decided to play the original instead. I’m not into city-builder games, but it’s very light here and the platforming stages are the main focus. I played through the first chapter for testing, and I was really enjoying it! I’ll once again be abusing save states for this one. Fantasy Life got a sequel recently and I was surprised to hear that the first game never came to PC, so I’ll be immersing myself in that world too. I ended up playing the first two levels of Black and it took me over an hour. The second level is so long, and I uncharacteristically run-and-gunned my way through it. My friend loved this game growing up, so this was a recommendation from him. Luminous Arc is another unknown SRPG series, and you guys know what Mario Golf is. I played the N64 and GameCube games in the series but never touched the handheld releases. I think it’s time to change that, I really enjoyed Toadstool Tour when I played it back in the day. One interesting tidbit is that during my research, I read that one of the best modern versions of Phantasy Star IV is as part of the SEGA Genesis Classics Collection. Since the collection is now delisted, I decided to emulate the Switch version. I found out that there are other games included in the collection that are on my list, so I can knock out a few games through one rom. It’s a really cool collection too, it has a 90s themed bedroom, CRT TV, rewind, fast forward, and save states! I wonder why they delisted it. Alien Soldier is the first game from there on my list, and I’ll be working on testing the other ones this week.

 

Game Recaps

Finally got another session of Tales of Phantasia in after another month-long gaming break. How does that keep happening!? When my friend came over, after just a few minutes, he was like “we can start our game anytime.” He’s not usually that eager to play video games, I was pleasantly surprised. He was missing it too, which bodes well for the future of the series. In this session, we tried out and failed miserably at the arena, made a pact with the spirit of lightning, and got the ability to fly anywhere in the world. Not too bad for three hours! Check out our playthrough below: 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Eyes of Wakanda Season 1 Episodes 3-4 (complete)

·       Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld Season 1 Episodes 1-6 (complete)

·       Raised by Wolves Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (still watching, show ended)

·       Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Got a couple miniseries knocked out and finally finished up the Harry Potter series. The miniseries were underwhelming to say the least. While I continue to enjoy the Marvel Animation style, Eyes of Wakanda didn’t hold a candle to What If…? for me. Tales of the Underworld similarly wasn’t nearly as good as Tales of the Jedi or Tales of the Sith. Very forgettable unfortunately. I felt that Harry Potter had an appropriately epic finale, even if the final duel was a bit anticlimactic. The epilogue was pretty goofy too, but I’m just gonna forget about that. Now I’m working on Raised by Wolves which has an interesting premise, but I’m not sure how it’ll be expanded on yet. I’m still early, so I’ll withhold judgement for now.

Conclusion/Upcoming

So yeah, I finally got a little more gaming in, sprinkled in some more emulation stuff, and spent a good chunk of money on “new” games. It was a solid week I’d say. I do want to give an update on the Game Pass thing I mentioned in my monthly post. I set up auto-redeem for three months of PC Game Pass, but when I hit the redemption threshold on Wednesday, it declined. I don’t know how an auto-redemption using Microsoft Rewards points for a Microsoft product can fail but here we are. I’ve been too scared to try and redeem it manually in case my account was flagged or something so that is on hold for now. I was looking forward to getting back into gaming again, but I am enjoying working on the emulation stuff as well. Who knows, maybe I’ll try to redeem it soon, or maybe hold onto my points so I can stack multiple redemptions together and not feel rushed to play games with a looming deadline.

My plan for this week is going to be to continue watching Raised by Wolves. I won’t finish that up for a little while so that’s the only TV I plan on watching. Now with Harry Potter out of the way, the next movie on my list is Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. I was originally planning on skipping it because it didn’t review very well, but I figured I already saw all the others (minus the reboot) so I might as well. Tales of Phantasia may happen but if not, it’s gonna be more emulation testing. I was at 413 lines left on my notes last update and am sitting at 399 now. I may have cheated a bit by resizing the text file but don’t tell anyone! I still made decent progress. Anyway, that’s all I got for now, I’ll see you all next week. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,531 (+30)