Monthly Update #11: The End Draws Near

November 2025

11 months down, only one to go. I still can’t believe I’ve managed to maintain a weekly and monthly blog all year. It’s been quite the endeavor. The Game Pass subscription is still going strong with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 completed and Metaphor: ReFantazio ongoing. All the games I’ve been playing lately have a colon in the title I just noticed. What’s up with that? Anyway, November was another productive month on the gaming front. More details in the recap, but for now, let’s look at my acquisitions.

Game Acquisitions

Uh oh, looks like my spending is creeping up again. Still not to an egregious amount like some other hobbies but a decent amount, nonetheless. The emulation testing is officially on hold while I work through the Game Pass catalog, so these are all PC games that were either given away or purchased by me or a Steam family member. No AAA games here and quite a few itch.io horror freebies I picked up at the beginning of the month. It’s hard to pick a standout here, but Danganronpa, Dream Tactics, Gordian Quest, Mouthwashing, Noctuary, and Reignbreaker all look pretty good. I’m sure there’s quite a few others that reviewed well and I’m looking forward to trying everything out.

# of Games: 60

Total Money Spent: $50.88

Price/Game: $0.85

Game Recaps

I just barely squeezed in my most played month of the year, narrowly surpassing October by less than an hour. Only three games played last month, but two of them are long RPGs so I have an excuse besides “too busy to play anything” 😜 You can read my full review for Expedition 33 here but long story short: it was the best game I’ve played in years. I also got a decent way into Metaphor: ReFantazio and am enjoying that as well. This is my first Atlus experience and I gotta say, solid first impression. A Persona series playthrough is in my backlog, as well as a few other niche games from them. No SMT plans though, I hear those games are tough as nails which is not what I play games for. Lastly, I got one medium-length game of Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp in with my co-op partner. It’s an OK party game with some funny and crude writing. Not exactly a deep experience but I can see myself playing a couple more sessions of it. Here’s playlists of the three games mentioned if you want to check out my let’s plays of them:

 

 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last month:

·       Berserk 1997 Season 1 Episodes 3-25 (complete)

·       Berserk: The Golden Age Arc – Memorial Edition Season 1 Episodes 1-13 (complete)

·       Berserk 2016 Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2 Episode 12 (complete)

·       Barbarian

·       Demolition Man

·       Ballerina

·       Nobody 2

·       The Accountant

I really dove deep in the Berserk anime last month, and I just finished it! This is probably the most adult anime I’ve watched, and definitely one of the darkest. I’m debating reading the manga to get a more complete story, but that’s a big time commitment. I’ll have to think about it some more. I had a solid selection of movies I watched too. Barbarian was my friend’s Halloween choice as I’m not usually into horror and as such, it was the weakest of the bunch for me. I think my favorite movie of the month goes to Demolition Man, although Ballerina and The Accountant are close with cool action scenes and such. Demolition Man was just surprisingly funny which I didn’t expect, and Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes played their roles perfectly, with Sandra Bullock as the naïve sidekick. More cheesy 90s movies please!

Conclusion/Upcoming

November was quite a packed month; I got a ton of game time in! Expedition 33 was an incredible experience, and Metaphor: ReFantazio is shaping up to be a hit as well. Monster Prom 2 is also here 😅 I know I can’t expect a party game to have the same depth as a JRPG, but I did get a bit of whiplash with the genre shift if I’m being honest. Enough about that though, what have I got coming up for December? For TV shows, I’m planning on watching Star Wars Visions Season 3, Blue Submarine No. 6, and Record of Lodoss War. I have a couple ongoing shows airing in December with Stranger Things Season 5 and One Punch Man Season 3, but they won’t be done in December so I’m not sure what I’ll watch until then. Maybe The Sandman and its spinoff Dead Boy Detectives? I’ll play it by ear; I can’t plan everything out! For gaming, I’m likely just going to stick with Metaphor: ReFantazio for the rest of the year for single-player stuff. I do want to get some more Monster Prom 2 in, but I don’t know if that will take the rest of the month or not. I’ll be playing that by ear also. That’s all for now, thanks for sticking with me on this blogging journey this year, it’s been an experience for sure. I’ll catch you next week for my first December weekly update, thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,741 (+57)