Weekly Update #52: The Last One

December 21-27, 2025

That’s right, this is the last weekly update for my blog. After posting every week in 2025, it’s time to move on. I want to thank everyone who took the time to read these posts this year. There were some fun moments, but the time I put into my blog far outweighed the enjoyment I got out of it. Maybe if there was more community engagement, I would be motivated to continue. As it stands though, I feel like I’ve been writing into the void, so I think it’s time to move on. This won’t be my last post; I still have the December monthly and 2025 year in review posts coming in a few days. Let’s get started one last time with my acquisitions from the past week.

Game Acquisitions

Two weeks in a row without spending anything on games. I’m nailing the holiday anti-consumerism! That doesn’t mean I didn’t get any freebies though. Sorry We’re Closed looks like a fun neon horror experience that was given away on Epic. Saga of the Moon Priestess was given away on itch.io and looks like a cool short retro RPG throwback. THOTH was won in a Reddit contest and could be an enjoyable co-op title if I find someone to play with. The four retro titles are part of the SNK 40^th Anniversary Collection which was recently given away for free on Stove. Most of the titles that are part of the collection don’t appeal to me, but these four at least look like they could be a good time so I added them individually.

# of Games: 7

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

Game Recaps

Not a bad playtime for having only played four days. This is all from Sunday-Wednesday as I was busy the remainder of the week. As I suspected, the fight with Louis at the Royal Capital was not the final battle. Right before I was about to defeat him, he used dark magic to turn me into a human temporarily to scare everyone into dropping their support for me and endorsing him instead. We escaped and have been rebuilding our strength and reputation since then. I also made it back to the Elda village and found out the truth behind their tribe and the world as a whole. I even learned that the protagonist was the idealized form of the prince I’ve been working to save created from magla (magic) and have since merged with his body to become the prince. That one I didn’t see coming. I just completed all of the requests available except for the dragon trials and final boss so now I need to debate what I’m gonna do with the limited time I have left. I really want to raise my attributes to max out my bonds, but I don’t know if I have enough time to do it. It’s gonna be a close one! Anyway, here are the latest public videos from my playthroughs and playlists if you wanna catch up on everything. 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last week:

·       Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Season 1 Episodes 2-15 (still watching, show ended)

·       Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

I think I’m enjoying Chronicles of the Heroic Knight more than the original series. It’s easier for me to follow at least. Some of the voice acting is still not great and the animation looks basically the same, but the characters are more interesting and the story mostly makes sense. I’m not a big Mission Impossible fan, but it’s one of those cases where I’ve watched all the previous movies, so I feel obligated to watch this one. It is the next to last installment after all, so I’m almost done. It was an enjoyable, high-production action flick which was my expectation. I feel like I would’ve liked it more if I remembered literally any of the lore, but just like Fast and Furious, it’s been around for so long that there’s way too much to keep track of for me to care anymore. Even still, I would recommend it to any action movie fans.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Once again, thank you to everyone who took the time to read my gaming progress this year. It’s unfortunate that the year I started a gaming blog was the year I had the lowest amount of completions on record. There were a number of factors for this including the return to office, taking time to blog, editing every gameplay recording to restart my gaming channel, and taking a break of several months to start my unexpected emulation journey. I only paused when I learned about Microsoft Rewards earning enough for me to subscribe to PC Game Pass indefinitely free of charge so that is my main focus. I’ll get back to it when that is no longer the case. For this week, I’m planning on finishing up the Record of Lodoss War anime and then watching the last of Stranger Things. I’ll also be finishing up Mission Impossible with The Final Reckoning. On the gaming front, it’s looking like I’ll once again be focusing only on Metaphor: ReFantazio. I didn’t get to Monster Camp last week and it’s looking like I won’t be playing it this week either. I really wanted to finish up Metaphor before the end of the year, but that is looking less and less likely. Since this will be my last post of 2025, I want to wish you all a happy new year! I’ll be back next with my December monthly followed by the 2025 annual. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,795 (+8)

Weekly Update #51: The Penultimate Weekly Update

December 14-20, 2025

Only one more weekly update after this one and I’ve completed an entire year of weekly updates! What a year 2025 has been. This week marks another slight decline in game time due to the holidays and an unexpected life event, but hopefully that will pick up again next week. My work announced I can work from home through January 5^th which will help with the work-life balance. Anyway, let’s get on with the penultimate episode!

Game Acquisitions

I somehow managed to dodge all of the holiday sales last week. My Steam family purchased two games (Wingspan and Solace State), I traded away an extra Ghostrunner II key on Reddit for four short titles (Fractured Minds, Golf vs Zombies, The Indie Mixtape, and Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?), and got the rest through freebies on various storefronts. Technically, I had four games hit my wishlisted price, but I decided to hold off on them in the hope that they’ll be even cheaper/bundled in the future. I have more than enough games to hold me over until then.

# of Games: 10

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

Game Recaps

I finished my first short game of Monster Camp with my co-op partner, which only took double the amount of time the game said it would 😅 He expressed interest in playing some more, so it looks like that game is still on the menu! It’s alright, but the gameplay is pretty shallow and we’re already seeing some repeat scenarios so I’m not sure how many more sessions we have planned. We did manage to unlock another secret ending which is my main motivation. In Metaphor: ReFantazio, I made it to Altabury Heights and fought the big bad himself, Louis for the first time. I also fought what I think was the hardest boss of the game so far, Sogne the ice dragon. That one took a few attempts. The game is telling me to power up for the final confrontation, but I can’t help but notice that there’s still over a month left in the calendar and plenty of bonds to work on so I doubt it’s actually the end. As always, here are links to the latest public video on my channel and playlists where you can watch everything so far. I’m planning on going back to Expedition 33 to play the DLC after finishing Metaphor. I’m trying to beat it before the end of the year but I’m not sure if that will happen. Either way, I won’t remove Expedition 33 from my top 2025 list or make it eligible for 2026 since I already beat the main game. 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last week:

·       Record of Lodoss War Season 1 Episodes 5-13 (complete)

·       Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Season 1 Episode 1 (still watching, show ended)

·       King Kong

Record of Lodoss War was, as I feared, a super generic fantasy 90s anime. I barely absorbed anything that happened, it was very unmemorable. Most of the voice acting and animation was bad, the story is oddly paced, and the main character is worthless throughout most of the show. I started the sequel but am way too early to form any opinions yet. The main character was recast which made me think it was a remake of what I just watched like the 2022 Berserk anime, but apparently it is actually a sequel. We’ll see if it ends up being any better. I enjoyed Peter Jackson’s King Kong more than I thought I would. I was really dreading it after seeing the three hour and 20 minute runtime, but the time was filled very well. I even got a little sad at the end when they killed him. And just like The Truman Show, it was nice seeing a comedic actor (Jack Black in this case) take on a more serious role. Now I’m all prepared to play the PS2 game!

Conclusion/Upcoming

Another lighter week last week. On top of the games mentioned earlier, I also played some Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince, Pizza Possum, and Divinity: Original Sin at my brother’s place. I wasn’t able to time it, and playing with kids leads to frequent breaks and questionable progress at best, but they were all generally a good time. We’ve now gotten two crowns in Pizza Possum several times but have yet to clinch the third for me to mark it as complete. I was even eating the final pizza for the third crown when I was caught last time 😭 I just didn’t have the right powerup for the ending. If I do play it again, I’ll try to make sure I have some smoke bombs handy. This week, I plan to get back into Metaphor: ReFantazio after only playing for an hour since the 15^th. I guess I’ve just been busy. It’s looking less and less likely that I’ll be able to finish it by the end of the year. That’s OK though, it just means it’ll dominate my top 10 list for 2026! Speaking of, my top 10 is pretty much locked in at this point. My plan is to write one more weekly post, then the monthly post for December, then have my annual top 10/year in review post to round out 2025. Look forward to all of that hopefully next week. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,787 (+8)

Weekly Update #50: The Birthday Variety Pack

December 7-13, 2025

That’s right, last week was my birthday! And also the Game Awards which is almost as important I guess. Expedition 33 won basically everything it was nominated for which I’m happy about. It’s my personal GOTY as well. My brother and I hung out and played a few co-op games together which was a good time. I also bought a few more games to help pad my yearly game spending apparently.

Game Acquisitions

My first purchase of the week was a single game instead of a bundle which is rare for me. I bought The Medium which finally hit my price point. I split the cost with my usual co-op partner and spent the rest of my Steam wallet funds to do it. First on the list of three bundles purchased this week was Fanatical’s Build your own Holiday Bundle (2025) which is their cheapest bundle pricing at 5/$3. The games in this tier at least show some promise, and at $0.60, I’m not out much if it turns out to be a dud. Next up is Humble Bundle’s Award Nomination Bundle. Humble Bundles haven’t been as good as Fanatical’s lately in my opinion because they’re usually too expensive or have too many duplicates of games I already own since they don’t have a pick-and-mix structure like Fanatical. This one came out of nowhere though and has tons of good games at a cheap price. I’m still not interested in three of the games on offer, but the historical low of the other six is way higher than the top tier asking price so I’m more than happy to jump in. Lastly, I picked up a VR bundle which are usually way too expensive to justify compared to flatscreen bundles. Specifically, this was Fanatical’s Build Your own Hyper VR Bundle. The pricing tier is the same as their Platinum Collections which is usually the highest pricing tier I consider at 3/$10, 5/$15, or 7/$20. I went with the five-game option here as well and am really looking forward to RUINSMAGUS and The Light Brigade in particular. Once again, this way undercuts the historical lows for these games.

# of Games: 19

Total Money Spent: $26.60

Price/Game: $1.40

Game Recaps

As the title suggests, I had a variety of games to play this week! Metaphor: ReFantazio is my ongoing single-player game of course, but I played an hour and a half or so of three different games with my brother for my birthday. I decided not to edit and upload the footage since there’s no commentary and I don’t know if or when I’ll be going back to these later to finish them. They were each fun pick-up-and-play games, and we were so close to beating Pizza Possum. You have to beat the game three times in a row though with no checkpoints on the second and third runs which seems overly punishing and repetitive. We made it to two but lost on our third run. Maybe down the line we can revisit it and get that elusive third crown. In Human Fall Flat, we completed the Mansion, Train, Carry, and Mountain levels according to my achievements list. I was enjoying myself, but I’m not sure my brother was. I’ll keep it in the co-op list just in case. In Moving Out, we finished the first area and did the first corporate job in the second. We’re not great at finishing the levels quickly, but at least the requirements for bronze medals are generous so far. Lastly, in Metaphor, I completed the Scoundrel’s Hold, Forsaken Tower, Orbwise Path, and Dragon’s Temple. That last one was a real doozy. I attempted the Spire of Blind Faith as well but didn’t realize I was underleveled and had to leave with my tail tucked. It feels like three days of travel wasted, which sucks. Time (and mana) feel like precious resources in this game, so I’m bummed whenever I feel like I waste them. Oh well, hopefully it gets better. There was a big revelation in the Dragon Temple about the world being set in the far future of Earth after humans were wiped out and the few that are left turning into giant monsters. I saw it coming a while ago, but it was cool seeing the reveal regardless. Here are the latest videos of Metaphor, Monster Prom 2, and Expedition 33 on my YouTube channel and playlists where you can watch everything so far: 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last week:

·       Blue Submarine No. 6 Season 1 Episodes 3-4 (complete)

·       Record of Lodoss War Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (still watching, show ended)

·       The Truman Show

I finished up the super short Blue Submarine anime which left me feeling unsatisfied. What was there was interesting enough (except for some of the monster designs and voices, those could’ve been better). As I feared, it passed way too quickly for me to really care about what was happening. After that, I started my next anime with Record of Lodoss War. So far, it’s filled with poor 90s animation and English voice acting. The Japanese dub might be better but I’m a die-hard dub over sub so I’m powering through with it anyway. I like the world well enough but don’t feel particularly attached to any of the characters. It’s only a 13-episode series with a two-season second series coming next so maybe this first show is just them testing things out. Instead of watching King Kong as my movie for the week like I planned, I ended up watching The Truman Show with my brother. I already knew the “twist” (the movie is 27 years old after all), but I still enjoyed it despite that. It was nice seeing Jim Carrey in a more serious role for a change.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Only two more weekly updates to go in 2025! What a ride it’s been. This was a lighter week this week on account of my birthday and the Game Awards taking up my time. I’m not complaining though, tis the season and all that. It’s even snowing outside as I type this ☺️ It was nice hanging out with my brother, I don’t get to see him enough. Maybe I’ll even do it again this week for Christmas 😉 Other things coming up this week include potentially finishing the first Record of Lodoss War anime and moving on to the next show in the series Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. I’ll probably also get to King Kong this week, all three+ hours of it. More Metaphor is happening of course, and maybe a short game of Monster Prom 2 which I didn’t get to last week. Hopefully more awesome bundles don’t keep coming out for me to spend my money on. Or hopefully they do 👀 Anyway, that’s it from me this week, thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,779 (+19)

Weekly Update #49: Monsters and Metaphors

November 30 - December 6, 2025

With Thanksgiving behind us, I had another co-op gaming session with Monster Prom 2. There was tons of Metaphor: ReFantazio gaming of course, and a surprisingly good value bundle purchase. Let’s get into it.

Game Acquisitions

To kick off their BundleFestive event, Fanatical revealed their newest Build your own Killer Bundle. Their Killer Bundles used to be some of the best they offered, but lately they’ve been making the bundles way too big and expensive with too many repeats for bundle buyers like me. To celebrate their 1500^th bundle (apparently), this seemed to be a welcome return to form. The games were only $1 each if you bought at least 10 of them. That beats the historical low buy a lot for basically everything offered, and I had no issue finding 10 to add to cart. I managed to hold off on their other BundleFestive offerings, despite there being a couple games in each that looked appealing. I also chose not to redeem the December Humble Choice. I’m interested in Nine Sols, but it’s still on Game Pass so I’m going to try to play it on there sometime next year. The other games were freebies or generous giveaways from Sobequ on HLTB.

# of Games: 16

Total Money Spent: $10.09

Price/Game: $0.63

Game Recaps

My friend and I finished one full game of Monster Prom 2 instead of just the medium game we played last time. We both made the mistake of picking the same animal at the beginning of the game as the last time, which apparently dictates which love interest shows up the most. As a result, Joy kept showing up for me and Damien for my friend even though that’s who we went with already. As a result, I ended up not getting a date to the meteor shower, although my friend managed to romance Calculester. I think after this we’re just gonna try a couple of short games to get other endings and call it there. Not a bad game, but not a lot of depth either. I made a ton of progress in Metaphor: ReFantazio though. I completed the Grand Trad Mausoleum, Tomb of Lament, Abandoned Tomb, and Charadrius dungeons. I also maxed out my first social link with Strohl! Now I’m on Virga Island and am about to start doing more requests from there. Here’s the latest public video for both games as well as Expedition 33 which is still slowly becoming available. I’ve also linked the playlists if you want to catch up on everything. 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last week:

·       Berserk 2016 Season 2 Episodes 9-12 (complete)

·       Star Wars Visions Season 3 Episodes 1-9 (complete)

·       Blue Submarine No. 6 Season 1 Episodes 1-2 (still watching, show ended)

·       The Accountant 2

Almost three TV show completions last week! That might be a new record. Granted, I was at the end of Berserk already and Star Wars Visions and Blue Submarine No. 6 are short watches but still. Berserk ended on a cliffhanger as I feared, so I’ll have to read the manga if I want to experience more of the story. Star Wars Visions season 3 thankfully went back to the roots of season 1 by having a different anime studio working on each episode. It was good for the most part, although I wasn’t a fan of the last episode and some of the voice acting throughout could’ve been better. I suspect it will be a controversial season. The third episode titled The Ninth Jedi is getting its own spinoff though so that’s pretty cool. Blue Submarine No. 6 is fine so far, although I can already tell it’s gonna come and go without much fanfare. I just don’t think four episodes is enough time to establish the world and characters as well as introduce and wrap up the plot. I guess I’ll find out the day this post goes up since I should have it finished by then. The Accountant 2 was alright but not nearly as good as the first one. I’m bummed they killed off J.K. Simmons at the very beginning and Anna Kendrick didn’t reprise her role. It felt like a missed opportunity there. I don’t know how I feel about them essentially weaponizing Autism with the kids and can’t tell if it's in poor taste or not. I’ll leave that up to someone else to decide.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Overall, this was a pretty good week in gaming and TV. Metaphor: ReFantazio continues to be an enjoyable time. I think I’ve finally gotten a good grasp on how everything works. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the calendar system since it feels like I’m rushing sometimes, but there’s no denying that it seems to keep the pace up for the plot.

For next week, I’m diving headfirst in the Record of Lodoss War anime. Like Berserk and Blue Submarine No. 6, it’s an anime I discovered while researching retro games to add to my backlog. I’ll also be watching Peter Jackson’s King Kong Movie, all 3+ hours of it 🫠 I’m hoping to get a short game of Monster Prom 2 in with some new characters but if not, it’ll just be more Metaphor. That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,760 (+19)

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)