We’ve officially hit summer now, my least favorite season. It’s so hot 🥵 I know, I’ll stay inside and play video games!
Game Acquisitions
Yet another month with a ton of game bundle purchases. I guess I won’t be slowing down on that front after all. I even redeemed the June Humble Choice, my first Choice redemption since last October. Octopath Traveler II was too good to pass up, and Life is Strange was in my wishlist. There’s a lot of variety in my acquisitions this month. Octopath Traveler II is probably the highest profile game here and the one I’m looking forward to the most.
# of Games: 89
Total Money Spent: $93.50
Price/Game: $1.05
# of Games YTD: 518
Total Money Spent YTD: $368.15
Price/Game: $0.71
Game Recaps
The first couple weeks of the month were dedicated to finishing up Final Fantasy V. It’s the longest game in the series so far, and my favorite by far. I’ve heard great things about VI though so maybe it will be dethroned quickly. Before that though, my next game in the series I decided to play is Final Fantasy Dimensions, a mobile spinoff inspired by V. I’ve heard it’s a long one but worth playing. I’m not too far in yet so I don’t want to form a definitive opinion. It’s OK so far, but it controls weird due to playing on an Android emulator on PC and I’m sorely missing the quality of life features from the Pixel Remasters like quick save, dungeon maps, and being able to turn off encounters. I’m also not a fan of having to spend job points to continue leveling up jobs. I’m worried I’ll pick the wrong jobs and end up wasting a bunch of points and making the game harder than it needs to be. Hopefully that won’t be the case and I’m able to get through it. I just made it to the World of Darkness in Chapter 2 so I’m still pretty early.
I had a couple co-op gaming sessions of Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut as well. We finally have a full party! Fuller than full actually, since there’s one person on the sidelines providing passive perks which is an interesting mechanic. I practiced a little bit with one of the new characters since he unlocked a more powerful heal arte and I’ve been mostly playing as a healer. The arte is really expensive and time-consuming to cast in the heat of battle due to the CC combat system so it’s really hard to pull off which severely limits his ability to heal. My co-op partner instantly latched on to the latest party member though due to him being used to playing a magic user in Tales of Phantasia. I’m proud of him being flexible like that due to this game being harder than most he’s played since he isn’t much of a gamer. In the story, we just made it to the desert continent and met the corrupt bishop Greybum who stole a powerful magical artifact. We’re about 10 hours in so still pretty early here too.
After beating Final Fantasy V, I decided I was going to let my Game Pass subscription lapse since Dimensions isn’t on the service, so I didn’t want to have it active if I wasn’t using it. Before it ran out, I got a couple sessions of Balatro in. It was fun enough, and I managed to complete White Stake difficulty for the first three decks. Anyone in the know would say I’ve barely even scratched the surface, so I’ll probably get back to it at some point after beating Final Fantasy Dimensions and VI. Before I could start my third session of the game though, Microsoft announced the games leaving Game Pass at the end of the month and Volcano Princess was on the list. That one was pretty high up on my list of Game Pass games to play so I played through it right away. I didn’t record my gameplay for that since it played mostly like a visual novel which probably wouldn’t be very exciting to watch.
Lastly, I played a handful of shorter games that I wasn’t expecting to play. These were emulated games that I’m continuing to slowly test and add to my backlog but ended up playing a little more than I meant to. The first of these emulated games was Dungeon Clawler, which you may have noticed was one of the games I just acquired. Android was having a sale for a bunch of games for 10 cents, and I have tons of Google Play credit to spend so they’re basically free (the other two purchases being Hitman: Sniper and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated). It’s a roguelite somewhat similar to Slay the Spire except with much less depth and a unique combat mechanic where you use a claw machine to pull the items out the inflict damage or boost defense and hope for the best. It seems OK so far, I ended up playing one run which took almost two hours, and I failed around 70% of the way to the final boss. Since I meant to just be testing the game instead of playing it, I’ll get back to it at a (much later) date. The other two emulated games I unexpectedly played (and beat!) were the Bust a Groove games for the PS1. Like the other emulated games, I meant to just play one level to make sure it works before moving on, but it turns out the whole campaign per character has to be beaten in one sitting with no saves so that’s what I ended up doing. I played through both games as Kelly on normal difficulty. I was originally planning on keeping them in the backlog to play as other characters, but I decided that the gameplay was barebones enough that I didn’t feel like playing it over and over again. Here are links to every game I played and recorded or uploaded to my YouTube channel in June. Please note that the first part of Tales of Destiny is going live on July 7th, Balatro on July 31st, and Final Fantasy Dimensions on August 21st so there will be a bit of a wait for those.
Game Reviews
FINAL FANTASY V
It seems that the jump in quality I was expecting from the NES to SNES transition came one title later than expected. While I’ve enjoyed each game in the Final Fantasy series a little more than the previous, and that continues to hold true with this entry, I didn’t like Final Fantasy IV as much as I thought I would. It was still a good game, just not the generational leap I thought it would be. The ATB system did fundamentally change how combat works, but I struggled with it and didn’t see much merit over the traditional turn-based system of the previous games. Final Fantasy V, however, combined the ATB system from IV with the job system from III to change things up. While I didn’t care for either system on their own, combining them together somehow elevated both to create the most fun I’ve had playing Final Fantasy by far.
While Final Fantasy III technically introduced the job system to the series, V is often the one credited with turning it into something special. Now that I’ve played both, I can see why. In simple terms, jobs in Final Fantasy are like classes in other games. You have basic melee units like the knight, basic magic units like the white and black mages, and more specialized units with unique abilities like the dragoon or geomancer. The job system in III was extremely underbaked in my opinion, which is understandable since it was on the NES and the first game in the series to have it. There were a lot of jobs in that game, but I felt that they were either completely useless, designed for one extremely specific scenario (i.e. use it for one boss and then never again), or replaced by a job introduced later that was better in every way. V fixed all these issues by making every job viable as well as unlocking new abilities for every job as you levelled them up and transferring those abilities to other jobs, so everyone was essentially dual-class. It was so fun unlocking new abilities in one job and using those abilities to enhance other jobs. I felt like I was able to spec everyone out to my specific playstyle which helped me feel closer to the characters oddly enough. On top of that, when some harder late-game bosses demanded a different strategy to defeat them, I didn’t feel like I was being punished for only playing a certain way up to that point. I could assign a job to a character who has never used that job before and still reap most of the benefits from doing so while also keeping the ability of one of their other jobs they were working on, so I didn’t feel like I was starting from scratch.
The depth of the job system was the main driving factor for my enjoyment of the game, but that’s only one side of the coin. The characters were another highlight. They each have their own personalities and desires, and I think the smaller cast helped put each one into the spotlight a bit more. The story was classic Final Fantasy and nothing too special. The crystals that were protecting the world have been destroyed (the crystal shards actually represent the different jobs which is fun) and it’s up to the warriors of light to band together to stop the bad guy from engulfing the world in darkness. Individual character moments were good (Gilgamesh in particular was a joy), but the overall conflict was pretty meh. There were still a couple moments where I couldn’t figure out where to go, but for the most part the game directs you pretty well. The final dungeon dragged on for too long, and that unfortunately seems to be consistent for the series so far. It wasn’t as egregious as previous entries though, and the ability to turn off encounters and quick save that the Pixel Remasters introduced made it less annoying than it could’ve been. Overall, having now played I-V, I can confidently say that V is by far my favorite Final Fantasy game, and I highly recommend any JRPG fan who hasn’t played it yet to give it a shot.
Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 36h:33m
Rating – 8.5/10
Volcano Princess
Volcano Princess is a self-described “parenting-simulator-RPG adventure” where you are tasked with raising a daughter in a medieval fantasy town from infancy to 18, although most of the game takes place in her teenage years. I put the descriptor in quotes because I don’t fully agree with it; the gameplay is mostly in a visual novel format. The general gameplay loop consists of walking around town talking to people to raise your relationship level with them and participating in various side activities to raise your stats and make money like horse racing, cooking, and working a job. If you’ve played other life simulators like Growing Up, you’ll know the gist of what you’re getting into here.
I found the gameplay of Volcano Princess to be extremely repetitive. Everyday plays out in almost the exact same way: wake up, greet any visitors, talk to your daughter, send her on her way to talk to everyone in town, complete a couple side activities, go home, schedule classes, go to bed, repeat. There’s hardly ever anything thrown in to break up the monotony and even then, it takes the form of more reading and a couple different side activities. On top of that, the English translation leaves a lot to be desired. It’s legible most of the time, but sometimes I had to look up a guide just to understand what the game was trying to tell me.
You would think a visual novel with a lot of repetition and a mediocre translation would be a dealbreaker, and it might be for some people. Despite those issues, I couldn’t help but grow attached to a couple of the characters. I was interested in seeing how some of their stories played out. Some of the side activities level up the more you do them and I was just intrigued enough to see what the late game versions of those looked like (spoiler alert: they were mostly disappointing). I think the most impressive part of this game though is the artwork. The character designs all looked good, but the CGs looked phenomenal. I wish more of the game could’ve been presented in that style. It’s clear the game is meant to be played through multiple times because there are almost 100 endings and you can carry over some stats into new game plus to keep going. I can’t imagine wanting to go through the game more than once though, the repetition for one playthrough was more than enough. I’m probably scoring this higher than I should, but there were just enough positive aspects to warrant placing it slightly higher than the standard 7/10 “good” game. If you already know you enjoy life sims and anime art, you’ll probably like this and it’s an easier recommendation. If you aren’t, Volcano Princess likely won’t change your mind.
Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 20h:40m
Rating – 7.5/10
Bust a Groove
Bust a Groove is a PS1-era rhythm game with the core premise of the campaign being 1v1 dance battles. The gameplay consists of hitting a series of directions to the beat of the music and finishing with pressing square or circle on the fourth beat. Hitting multiple sets of notes in a row increases your combo which is necessary to score high enough to beat your opponent. Unlike scrolling music games like Guitar Hero or DDR, there’s not really any timing involved in hitting the directions and long as you get them all in before hitting the button on the fourth beat. As a result, it doesn’t feel much like the gameplay matches up with the music very well. Even worse, gameplay never evolves past this core concept which leads to a high degree of repetition despite the short runtime. There is a gameplay mechanic where you can press a different button on the fourth beat to dodge an attack from your opponent, but that mechanic is neither explained in the game nor necessary to beat the game on normal, so I did not engage with it.
On the plus side, the music is usually catchy, the environments and camera work can be fun, and the short CGI cutscenes for each character upon beating their campaigns are kinda fun to watch. I only beat the game with one character, but I looked up the other endings because there wasn’t enough variety in the gameplay to warrant playing the campaign over and over again. I wouldn’t recommend spending much money on this game if you plan on only playing it through once like I did. However, if the idea of playing over and over again with different characters and honing your skills through higher difficulties sounds appealing, I can see this being a more worthwhile purchase. Just know going in that there isn’t going to be a lot of depth.
Time to beat (Main) - 1h:1m
Rating – 6/10
Bust a Groove 2
Bust a Groove 2 is a PS1-era rhythm game that plays similarly to the first game. So much so, you can read through my review of that one and get the gist of what this game is about. There are a handful of differences between them though. In addition to dodging attacks by hitting a different button on the fourth beat, you also have two charges per dance battle to attack your opponent by hitting yet another button. Unlike the first game, I found it necessary to engage with these mechanics to beat the last few battles of the campaign on normal, despite the fact that they are still not explained in game. This added slightly more depth to the gameplay, but not enough to stave off the repetition. Second, as I was playing through the campaign, I noticed there were branching paths. I assume your performance dictates which path you take, but since I only played through once, it still felt just as linear as the first game. I was placed in the top path which allowed me to battle the secret boss at the end. The third major difference, and the biggest disappointment, is that the special character endings from the first game are completely removed. After I beat the game, it cut straight to credits and then back to the main menu. This would’ve been my main motivator to play through multiple times with different characters, so it’s a shame they’re gone. I found out after the fact that there are individualized character endings in the form of a TV show host spouting tasteless jokes and going over the character’s backstories in the original Japanese release, but they were all removed when the game was ported over to North America which is a shame.
This was a long-winded way of saying that both games in the Bust a Groove series are very similar. I played them both in one sitting a day apart and if I didn’t know any better, I could mistake them for being the same game. The music is still catchy, and the environments and camera work continue to be engaging, but the gameplay doesn’t evolve and the main incentive to play through the campaign multiple times with each character was completely stripped out. Even the final boss is the same in both games if you don’t count the secret boss. As such, my score and recommendation for this game is the same as the first one. If you only plan to play through it once to reach credits, don’t bother spending money on it. However, if you plan to hone your skills by playing on higher difficulties and want to see the different routes for each character, you might get more out of it. Just make sure to play the Japanese version of the game (which has an English dub) to see the original endings.
Time to beat (Main) - 1h:3m
Rating – 6/10
Stats
No new games entered my top five most played of 2026 last month, although Volcano Princess did sneak in at #7. I suspect Final Fantasy Dimensions may be my most played game by the time I beat it, but it’s still way too early to tell. My game spending continues to be elevated but averaging just over $1 per game shows that I’m still getting a lot of bang for my buck in my opinion. My gaming time for June continued to be on the higher end of average for me, which is nice, even if a lot of it was still spent on games that aren’t even in my backlog thanks to Game Pass. Unlike my spending, I hope this trend continues.
Conclusion/Upcoming
I can’t believe 2026 is already halfway done. Where is the time going? It’s been a somewhat productive gaming year for me as I’ve already beaten almost twice as many games as I did last year. Game Pass continues to be worth the $0 I’m spending on it since it’s allowing me to play higher quality games I wouldn’t’ve tried otherwise, even if I’m neglecting games in my backlog as a result. My plans for July will likely consist mostly of playing Final Fantasy Dimensions as I imagine it will take up most of my time. Since Game Pass is on hold, I’m not sure when I’ll resubscribe to it and if there will be a good enough game announced to be leaving the service that will cause me to resubscribe earlier than expected. That’s the nature of subscriptions though unfortunately. My current plan is to beat Final Fantasy Dimensions, then resubscribe and play any games announced to be leaving the service, then start on Final Fantasy VI. I have high hopes for that one, and it will be the last Final Fantasy game I play for quite some time, so I hope it’s as special as people say it is. That’s all for now, thanks for reading everyone!
Backlog total: 4,373 (+102)
