I’m back! You can’t get rid of me that easily. I said I’d try maintaining the blog monthly and by God that’s what I’m gonna do. I also decided to change up the format a little bit. It won’t be as noticeable here, but I want to include a running year-to-date tally of all my stats. That means that come February, I should have my usual game acquisitions, money spent, and gametime for the month as well as graphs showing the year-to-date numbers. That way it’ll be easier to see how each month compares. Let’s move on to game acquisitions.
Game Acquisitions
Already out the gate with some big purchases. Hopefully this isn’t indicative of the year to come. Both Humble Bundle and Fanatical had good bundles last month that I didn’t want to pass up. This is already rivaling my high spend months from 2025, but there are a lot of solid titles here as a result. I also had quite a few successful Reddit trades and a handful of freebies from Amazon and Steam family purchases.
# of Games: 52
Total Money Spent: $44.48
Price/Game: $0.91
Game Recaps
Expedition 33 decided to sneak its way into 2026 with the release of the free Verso’s Drafts DLC. I was rusty but still managed to complete the new area. The new enemies in the Endless Tower however, absolutely not. I tried for a couple hours before giving up. I’m happy enough knowing I 100% complete the base game and am still looking forward to their next project. My friend and I also agreed that four playthroughs of Monster Prom 2 was enough. It was getting a little repetitive for me and we have plenty of other games to get to. We started the third installment as well but decided to play a quick horror game first as a sort of palate cleanser. We hadn’t played one of those in a while. For my first streams, I decided to play through Neon White. I played 20 hours over the course of four days to beat it before it left Game Pass, including a seven and a half hour stretch on the last day. Fun game, but I wouldn’t recommend neglecting your sleep schedule to beat a game as fast as possible 😅 A couple recent additions to the Game Pass catalog are the original two Final Fantasy games. I’m already planning on playing through the series, and the Pixel Remasters are some of the few I still haven’t purchased yet. I’m glad they decided to go with the first ones since they’re the first games I was planning on playing anyway according to my play order collection. I hope this means future entries will come to the service. I managed to complete the first game, and the second just released. I completed the first one and after I finish my Archipelago randomizer of The Messenger with the HLTB community, I’ll move on to Final Fantasy II. Lastly, I managed to complete Citizen Sleeper 2 right before midnight on the 31st when it was scheduled to leave Game Pass. I technically beat the first game too, but I wanted to keep playing that one to get more endings since I wasn't in a rush with that one. As always, have some playlists of anything I played and recorded in January. As part of my streaming push, reducing editing times, and because I have a video backlog months long, I’ve decided to forgo the hour-long video length and just upload the entire session at once. Please note that the first Final Fantasy video is going up on February 10th, Citizen Sleeper 1 on February 19th, and Citizen Sleeper 2 on March 21st. Now that I’m increasing the length of the videos, their frequency will eventually reduce and be made public much closer to when they are recorded. I'll also throw up the playlist for Metaphor: ReFantazio since those videos are still trickling out.
Game Reviews
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
This is a party game/visual novel where the goal is to court one of several humanoid monsters (ghost, witch, demon, etc.) and eventually ask them out on a date to a meteor shower at the end. The gameplay consists mostly of reading through absurd scenarios involving the player character, love interests, and many side characters, then making one of the two decisions that you think the love interest will like. Each player (up to four) gets two scenarios per week with the number of weeks determined by which length game you decided to play (short is two, medium is three, and full is five). At the end of the two scenarios, everyone gets to choose someone to sit next to at a campfire to have another chat, then pick an alcoholic drink that affects the game in different ways like changing your stats or unlocking new scenarios. At the end of the last week, instead of the fireside chat and drinking, each player chooses who they want to ask to the meteor shower and is either successful or rejected based on how well they did. Player order at the beginning of each week is determined by the game telling you to do something like think of an animal, say the animal out loud, then deliberate amongst everyone on which animal would be the most dangerous if given opposable thumbs.
The game is very raunchy, with curse words and sexual references everywhere. This is certainly not made to be played around children, although there are options in the menu to dial it back. While I enjoyed every scenario the game presented, the repetition set in pretty quickly. For reference, I played one full, one medium, and two short games. At the beginning of your turn, you pick one of only five locations to go to, read the scenario presented to you, and make one of two choices. The same scenarios popped up more than once, and the minigame to decide who goes first only seemed to have less than a dozen variants. On top of that, everyone has five different stats that go up or down depending on the choices you make and the drinks you drink (smarts, boldness, creativity, charm, and fun). However, not only is it usually not possible to know which choice is the correct one to woo your love interest, but the stats themselves didn’t seem to make any difference. I’m sure they affect the endings somewhat, but I couldn’t tell how. This led to a fairly shallow experience filled with a little too much randomness.
Monster Prom 2 is clearly designed to be played multiple times. After all, a party game wouldn’t provide much value if you could only play it once before having to move on to something else. As such, it provides several scenarios including 25 secret endings and 1,196 total outcomes! In the four games I played, I found three of the secret endings and saw 60 outcomes. Given the randomness mentioned earlier, combined with how long each game takes to play, I don’t know how it’s possible for anyone to get every outcome. Even if there was a guide somewhere on every correct decision, the amount of time it would take to see everything would far exceed the amount of time before boredom sets in. I was ready to call it quits after the four games I played, and it would take at least hundreds to see everything. As such, I recommend going into this game with the only goal being having fun with friends and throw the completionist mindset out the window. I did have fun with this game and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys making dirty jokes with their friends, but don’t expect anything deeper than that.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 9h:11m
Rating – 6/10
Neon White
Neon White is a fast-paced first-person shooter/platformer where the goal in each level is to kill all the demons and make it to the end as quickly as possible. The setup is there are a class of people called Neons that were sent to Hell for being sinners in life but have been called upon to Heaven by the Believers to eradicate a growing demonic threat in the form of a competition. As a reward, the top competitors get to temporarily enjoy Heaven’s amenities before being sent back to try again next year. You are one such Neon, the titular Neon White, and you meet up with your old companions in life Red, Yellow, Violet, and Green. You wake up in Heaven with no memory and over the course of the story slowly remember your old life, your companions, how you were all killed, and why you were sent to Hell in the first place.
The game follows a mission-based structure. Each mission consists of a set of similarly themed levels that must be completed in order before moving on to the next one. Once you complete a mission, you’re taken to a hub area where you get your next mission assignment, converse with your companions, and complete side quests with them if you found their optional gift collectible in the levels. When you’re in a level, you are equipped with weapons called soul cards. Each soul card has a primary ability (the gun part) and a secondary ability (a movement ability). You can have two soul card types equipped at a time, with up to a stack of three of each type. When you fire the gun, the ammo goes down by one until you run out, then the card is removed. However, when you discard a card manually, you activate the movement ability. For example, you can use a standard handgun card to fire low damage handgun rounds, but discarding the card immediately performs a double jump. Soul cards are found throughout each level and nothing carries over from level to level. You must use a combination of ammo and movement abilities to quickly dispatch the enemies and make it to the end as fast as possible. You are awarded a bronze, silver, gold, or apex medal depending on your time, and higher medals further increase your Neon rank (necessary to progress the main story) and reveal secrets such as the aforementioned gift collectibles and hints on how to achieve faster times.
As you can tell, this game was designed to be a speedrunner’s dream. I normally don’t care at all about speedrunning and am happy to meet the minimum requirements to proceed in a game, but I admit the game hooked me enough to want to achieve the gold or apex medals on every level. The gameplay loop is addicting, and being able to memorize each level after a few attempts and zooming through them at breakneck speed was always satisfying. The closest games I can compare this to are Mirror’s Edge or more recently Mullet Madjack. I liked the aesthetics of Mullet Madjack much more than Neon White, as the art style/graphics of the latter are nothing to write home about. Furthermore, there were some cringy and/or fanservicey cutscenes that I felt took away from the somewhat serious story the game was trying to tell. That being said, I still enjoyed the overall story and a handful of characters. The music was catchy as well, and the sound design was on point. And of course, most importantly, the game is very fun to play. If you can get past the anime style and lackluster story delivery and enjoy first person shooters or platformers, I think this game is well worth picking up.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 20h:27m
Rating – 8.5/10
Code Alkonost: Awakening of Evil
This is the worst game I’ve reviewed yet! Code Alkonost is a horror game with puzzle elements that draws heavily from Slavic mythology. You play a woman who is tasked with finding her sister after she goes missing while the two of them are making their regular offering to an idol. You quickly find yourself pursued by a soldier in full armor who mistakes you for a demon and punches you twice in the head and stabs you. You’re fine though somehow and wake up in the soldier’s house where he explains that he’s possessed when he leaves the house and will always mistake you for an enemy and try to kill you. You’re given an amulet that turns you invisible for a few seconds and sent on your way through six different areas where you must avoid a couple monsters (one of which is only encountered during a very short sequence), solve a couple puzzles, and fight the same boss a couple times where the mechanics/strategy don’t change at all.
In case it wasn’t clear, this game is very bad. The graphics are bad, especially for an Unreal Engine 5 game. The tutorial menu spoils scenes in the game because each one is hyper specific to the scenario the mechanic pops up in instead of being generalized. The music decides to randomly cut out for no reason. The voiceover is possibly the worst I’ve ever heard in a game, and the developers state that at least some of them are AI generated, which is obvious. The sound levels aren’t consistent at all, with some voices being muffled one sentence while much louder and clearer the next. The story makes very little sense and suddenly ends with a cliffhanger which may or may not ever be resolved. The enemy, puzzle, item, and environmental variety are all lacking. Sometimes the sprint straight up doesn’t work or will stop working even when there is plenty of stamina bar left. It employs cheap jumpscares instead of proper horror. The only positive things I can say about this game are that it ran fine, the skull puzzle was kinda fun to solve, and the two identical boss battles were slightly engaging and a much-needed break in the monotony of just walking around trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going. Avoid this at all costs, there are no redeeming qualities here.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 2h:45m
Rating – 2.5/10
FINAL FANTASY
I don’t think Final Fantasy needs any introduction, it is one of the most well-known and longest running JRPG series around. I’ve never played a proper Final Fantasy game before so I’m unable to compare it to other entries. On its own, I found it to be a competent if dated game which makes sense given the original came out all the way back in 1987. I played the Pixel Remaster version released in 2021 with some much-needed modern quality of life improvements. The graphical enhancements are nice of course, but there are also now maps for every area for easier navigation, up to 4X XP and money boosts to lessen or eliminate the grind (which I didn’t utilize), quick saving anywhere, and the option to turn encounters off and on whenever you want. I thought these all did a good job to make the nearly 40-year-old game palatable for modern audiences, but it didn’t solve everything.
The biggest issue I have with this game is that it’s still obscure about where it wants you to go and what to do next. I found myself multiple times looking up a guide to figure out the next step, even after sailing around the entire world trying to figure it out myself. Almost every time, the answer was not something I recall ever reading about while playing which makes me wonder how I could’ve come to it otherwise. The story is my next biggest gripe in the sense that it’s basically non-existent. This was again typical for the time, and the fact that there was any story at all still places it above most other games back then. It’s just unfortunate that it was almost all told in an exposition dump in a text crawl at the end after defeating the final boss. The combat was a mixed bag. I struggled a little bit at the beginning which was fine while I was coming to grips with how it works. However, most of the game was stupidly easy and I found myself mindlessly fast-forwarding through most fights using just the basic attack. Then, the final boss suddenly appeared (I didn’t know I was already at the end) and completely wrecked me. The difficulty spike is insane and just like that, I was unprepared. A more gradual difficulty curve would’ve been appreciated.
Despite these negatives, I still overall enjoyed my time with the game. The combat, while simplistic, was still enjoyable to partake in and highlighted each classes’ strengths and weaknesses well. I was always intrigued whenever a new monster popped up so I could see how it fights. The world, while barren and not fully fleshed out, was still interesting to explore in spots. I liked the mini stories each town had to tell. I can see how the game laid the groundwork for future entries, and I’m excited to watch the series evolve as I slowly work my way through. I recommend this to any turn-based RPG lover who isn’t immediately put off by some of the more dated elements of an otherwise good game. I think the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy I is a valid starting point for getting into the series.
Time to beat
(Completionist) - 16h:50m
Rating – 6.5/10
Citizen Sleeper 2
Citizen Sleeper 2 is an interesting RPG/visual novel hybrid about an android with an emulated human mind (known as a sleeper) who is woken up prematurely from a reboot and immediately goes on the run from their evil former employer who caused the interruption. Unlike the first game which takes place on a single space station, the sequel allows you to jump from station to station and even go on contracts to asteroids and old shipwrecks. The gameplay loop consists of rolling six d6 dice which serve as the number of actions you can take on any given day (called cycles). Actions vary depending on where you are but typically involve working for money (called cryo), reducing stress, or completing a sequence of events to finish a contract. The higher number die you decide to use to complete an action, the higher your chance of success. There is a whole resource management aspect to the game as well which involves managing fuel for travel, energy which can increase stress when depleted, stress itself which can break dice slots while on a contract, and supplies which dictate how many cycles you get while on a contract and act as a backup energy source.
This all might sound complicated at first, but most of the game is just reading. You start on one station and explore everything you can do on that station, slot your dice next to any action you want to take, read what the results of that action are, complete the contract around that station if you want, then move on to the next station and repeat. Despite having played the first game, I was confused by the stress mechanic and breaking dice since they are new additions, as well as the multitude of items you can collect like scrap and engine components. By the end of the game though, I was able to zoom from station to station basically at will and was able to get through cycles very quickly. Another neat addition to this game are the crewmates that you can take with you on contracts that have two of their own dice each that you can make use of. You and your crewmates make use of five different skills (endure, engineer, interface, engage, and intuit). Depending on which class you pick at the start of the game (out of three options), you will have one skill that is boosted +1, two that are +0, one that is -2, and one that is locked off from upgrading completely which gives a permanent -2. Each crewmate will have either two skills that are +0 or one skill that is +1 which makes you think about party composition when deciding who you want to take with you to complete contracts.
Speaking of, I have a problem with how contracts work in this game. While they are a fun addition, they never stopped being stressful. I ended up dying on the first contract of the game because I didn’t understand how the stress and broken dice systems worked. Failing actions on a contract will increase you stress level. Depending on how high your stress is, certain dice rolls will cause that die to take damage every time they’re rolled. When a die takes three points of damage, it breaks, effectively reducing the number of actions you can take per cycle by one. When all your dice break, you die. When you die, you earn a permanent glitch which guarantees that one of your dice will only have a 20% chance of success. This is a pretty egregious handicap that can snowball, and one I held for most of the game due to a poor explanation of the game mechanics. Even in the latter half of the game when my character was mostly upgraded and I had a firm grasp on how everything worked, there were still some contracts I failed either because they were near-impossible without perfect strategy or I just had bad RNG. I was still able to complete the game so contracts weren’t strictly mandatory, but failing missions never feels good, especially when it’s out of your hands.
Despite my misgivings about some of the new mechanics, I still enjoyed my time with the game. The story and characters continued to be the main draw of the experience. Meeting new characters and learning about their personalities and struggles was always the highlight of visiting any new station. Music and sound design were minimal, but I felt that only added to the sense of loneliness in the vastness of empty space. Getting a bunch of good dice rolls at the beginning of a cycle always felt great, and even getting bad rolls wasn’t necessarily a failure once I got some upgrades. If you enjoy reading a good sci-fi story, I think I can recommend this one. While not strictly necessary, I recommend playing the first game first. The mechanics are simpler to understand and it establishes the world and lore. There are even some returning characters and a couple references to the original.
Time to beat
(Main+Sides) - 16h:32m
Rating – 8/10
Conclusion/Upcoming
As you can see, I removed the TV and movie recap section from my posts. I felt that it only detracted from the gaming focus of the blog, and I didn’t feel as “qualified” to talk about them if that makes any sense. I still enjoy TV and movies and watch them regularly, but gaming is my main hobby and I feel that I have more to say about them. I also had the idea while writing this that I could tweak the thumbnails I use for YouTube to make specialized blog review pictures, but I unfortunately deleted a couple photoshop files before I had the chance to do it with everything. I'll try to be more consistent with the pictures next month. With that out of the way, I just wanted to say that it’s nice that I can already mark some completions for the year. There were several months in 2025 where I didn’t beat anything and I would rather not repeat that. My backlog will never go down otherwise. It doesn’t help that my time played for the month was the lowest since September, but I was busy setting up streaming stuff and took an unexpected mini-vacation so I have some excuse. My plan for February as mentioned in the game recap section is to finish up The Messenger randomizer and play through Final Fantasy II. If I manage that before Final Fantasy III comes to Game Pass (if it ever does), I’ll move on to the highest rated Game Pass title on my list which is Little Rocket Lab. I imagine Final Fantasy II and Little Rocket Lab together will take me more than a month to get through. Hooray longer games! Thanks for coming back to my newly renovated and now monthly blog. See you all again next month!
Backlog total: 3,856 (+51)
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