Another month dominated by Game Pass games with an unexpected retro completion mixed in. Also back to my bundle buying spree including another itch.io charity mega bundle to further inflate my backlog, like it needs to be any bigger.
Game Acquisitions
I was so proud of myself for holding off on buying anything. I didn’t buy anything for over a month (July 9th-August 12th)! Alas, all good things must come to an end, and I picked up my first VR bundle in quite a while. It was on the expensive side, but VR games tend to be more expensive anyway and it was a bunch of newer games that hadn’t even come close to the bundle price so I couldn’t resist. Now I have both Arizona Sunshine and Into the Radius games to look forward to when I finally buy a headset. I proceeded to buy a few more bundles towards the end of the month including itch.io’s Game industry hardship fund to add another 54 games to my backlog for a measly $10. Can’t argue with that value, and it goes towards a good cause as usual. The rest were giveaways, Reddit trades, and Steam family purchases as usual.
# of Games: 126
Total Money Spent: $88.53
Price/Game: $0.70
# of Games YTD: 674
Total Money Spent YTD: $474.48
Price/Game: $0.70
Game Recaps
Balatro made up almost half my playtime in August. I spent much longer than I expected on it. I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to go, but I managed to beat every deck on the lowest difficulty, then beat one deck on gold stake which is the highest difficulty. I was satisfied with that and called it there as it was starting to feel repetitive. The last of the 2D Final Fantasy games took the #2 spot in playtime. I enjoyed my time with all the Final Fantasy games I’ve played so far, and I’m sad to say goodbye to that era of the franchise. The next game in the series for me will be 4 Heroes of Light for the DS which I’m not super looking forward to as it doesn’t have great reviews. After that though will be the legendary PS1 era. VIII is a bit of a black sheep of the franchise along with II, but I’m super looking forward to VII and IX when I get around to them. It’s gonna be quite a while before I get there though.
Next up on the list was Minishoot’ Adventures which was a neat little bullet hell metroidvania. I’m not usually a bullet hell fan, and there was one dungeon in particular that was very frustrating to navigate and find all the collectibles in, but it was a good game otherwise. I AM YOUR BEAST was a short and sweet FPS with a speedrunning focus similar to Neon White. It wasn’t as good as that game in my opinion, but the smooth performance, politics-heavy story, and wonderful voice acting from the main characters carried it.
I also had not one but TWO sessions of Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut with my coop buddy. We made pretty good progress, I think. We fought our way through Moreau Castle taking out Batista which was the hardest fight in the game so far. We then made our way to Terazzi Castle and took out Tiberius which seemed to be a much easier fight. We ended our last session after getting our tragic backstory for Scary (Mary) and starting our trek to Heidelberg. Lastly, I had another unexpected game completion while going through my emulation testing. I beat one of the earliest games in the roguelike genre with Dragon Crystal. The game came out all the way back in 1990 for the Sega Master System. It’s older than I am! This also marks my first completion on a Sega console which is super exciting. Playlists of all the games I played or released in August are below. Please note that Minishoot’ Adventures won’t be up until November 22nd, I AM YOUR BEAST on December 16th, and FINAL FANTASY VI on Christmas. I’m currently uploading one video every three days to ensure a constant stream of content, at least until the FINAL FANTASY videos are done uploading which won’t be until February. After that, I might switch to every other day so there aren’t months between when I play a game and when you guys can watch it.
Game Reviews
FINAL FANTASY VI
FINAL FANTASY VI marks the end of the SNES era for the franchise and thus the 2D entries and man did it go out with a bang. From the very beginning, you can tell they’re going all in on cinematics and storytelling. The production values were much improved over the previous games despite still originally being on the SNES console. The next thing you immediately notice is that unlike the previous games which take place in the traditional medieval fantasy setting with knights and magic, this takes place in the future with mechs and mega factories. Magic died out 1,000 years ago with some people believing it never existed at all. It’s a fascinating setting and a welcome change of pace.
Combat still used the active time battle system from IV and V but with some twists. The job system from III and V is gone unfortunately, but in its place are character-specific abilities that all 14(!) playable characters possess as well as assignable Espers or summons which provide access to certain spells as well as a unique move and stat boosts on level-up. Once you use a spell obtained through an Esper enough times, you master it and can go on to use it even when switching to a different Esper. This allowed any character that can use Espers (which is most of them) to learn any spells. On one hand, this allows very flexible character customization as you can build any party member to do anything you want. On the other hand, it caused a lot of characters to feel the same since there are some spells that are simply better than others, so you try to teach those spells to everybody. The character-specific abilities were cool too, but I felt like they didn’t evolve much and I ended up using the same ones for every fight since near the beginning of the game. All of these factors combined to make what I felt was the easiest game in the series so far, for better or worse.
What the game lacks in combat depth, it makes up for with its story. I loved that all the main characters had their own backstories and motivations. There were a lot of optional characters you can recruit which didn’t have much in the way of story, and it’s understandable that not all 14 playable characters could be fully fleshed out, but the main ones were deep enough to make up for it. I loved that the summons were actual characters in the story too. Final Fantasy IV touched on this concept a little bit with the Land of Summons, but VI took it to another level with them being one of the main plot points in the story. I loved the mid-game plot twist that led to a darker and more open second half to the game. I thought the idea of splitting up the party to navigate multiple parts of some dungeons simultaneously was a cool concept, even if they were frustrating to get around in. But most importantly, I loved the opera scene which gave me my first taste of voice acting in a Final Fantasy game. I was awestruck at that scene (if you know, you know). I was debating giving this game an 8.5, same as Final Fantasy V, due to the less exciting combat and disjointed first half. However, thinking back to the wonderful story and that scene in particular and the emotions I felt while watching it, I have to bump it up to a 9. This is the pinnacle of the series so far to me, and I’m excited to see if VII can pass it. Every RPG fan owes it to themselves to play this game.
Time to beat
(Main+Extras) - 32h:42m
Rating – 9/10
Dragon Crystal
Dragon Crystal is a very early roguelike game released for the Sega Master System back in 1990. As with most games at the time, the story is basically nonexistent. It starts by showing you getting trapped in a crystal and presumably you need to get out. That’s everything shown to you in game. The manual does go into a little more detail, which was also typical at the time. You’re plopped in at level one surrounded by monsters, loot, and plants that block your path and turn every level into a maze. You must make it through 30 increasingly difficult levels to reach the exit and win the game.
Dragon Crystal does have a few things going for it. Enemies only move when you move SUPERHOT style so you can plan your way around them. Some items you pick up can’t be identified until used in battle at which point their effect is revealed which is kind of cool. Every few levels the biome changes which provides a welcome change of scenery. As is typical with roguelikes, the levels are semi-randomized, so no two runs are exactly the same. While this is commonplace now, I imagine this was a novel concept back when this game was released.
Unfortunately, the game has all the trappings reminiscent of games released at the time. Besides the lack of story as mentioned earlier, it also suffers from no tutorials and is just way too difficult. At one point in my playthrough I got stuck and had to look up a guide which told me I should be running into every wall to see if it’s actually a secret passage which is a mechanic that is never explained. If you pick up an item and equip it, there’s a random chance that item will be cursed and if you don’t have the means of removing the curse, sucks to be you. On top of that, later levels have enemies strong enough to kill you in a couple hits, especially if you haven’t been killing all the enemies up to that point to get stronger. The randomized nature of the game means there’s a good chance powerful enemies can swarm you and end your run just because you were unlucky. There’s a difference between a game being challenging and a game being unfair, and this one falls into the latter camp. I wouldn’t have gotten close to beating it if it weren’t for emulator rewinds. After I beat the game, I realized I had no strong feelings one way or another about it. Some of the mechanics are cool, but the mindless running around and punishing enemy encounters left me feeling apathetic about the whole thing. I don’t think this game is worth playing today unless you’re extremely curious about what an old roguelike looks like.
Time to beat
(Main) - 1h:57m
Rating – 5/10
Balatro
Balatro is a roguelite deckbuilder where the goal is to earn enough chips through playing poker hands to beat ever-increasing blinds. Once you beat eight antes, each made up of a small blind, a big blind, and a boss, you win the run. It sounds simple on paper, but there are so many game-changing modifiers in this game, it’s ridiculous. There are 15 decks to choose from ranging from getting an extra discard every round to randomizing every card in the deck. There are also 150 jokers that all have unique effects and act as the main mechanic for earning more chips. These range from something simple like +1 hand size to something much more powerful like increasing the chip multiplier every time you add a card to your deck.
While poker lays the groundwork for playing and scoring, Balatro quickly does away with typical poker strategies. You would normally want to play a high scoring hand like a full house or four-of-a-kind, but if your deck composition, active jokers, and hand levels favor lower scoring hands, it’s totally possible and even likely that you can score way more points with something as simple as a pair over something like a royal flush. Tarot cards can allow you to add, remove, or modify cards in your deck if you want more or less of a rank or suit to make playing boosted hands easier to pull off. Money is earned by winning blinds, certain jokers, and interest on money already earned but not spent and is used to buy items in the shop between rounds. With a staggering 340 collection items that include jokers, playing cards, boss blind abilities, booster packs, vouchers, and more, as well as enhancements, editions, and seals that can be applied to those cards, the amount of depth present in Balatro is truly a sight to behold.
And yet, despite the sheer variety of cards available and the strategies you can form with them, I felt the game get repetitive after a while. Perhaps it’s because I lacked the knowledge to form truly game-breaking decks, but after a while, I found myself employing the same strategy every run and praying that luck was on my side. My preferred deck was the checkered deck which removes all clubs and diamonds, so you have 26 spades and 26 hearts instead. I would combine this with my favorite hand (the flush), which this deck made extremely easy to play. Then every round consisted of just played flushes and hoping shops provided me with the cards I needed to power up those flushes to ridiculous levels to beat ante eight. This ended up working well enough for me to beat gold stake with that deck which is the highest difficulty available. By that point, I had seen almost everything the game had to offer and there wasn’t enough variety for me to continue. Even so, I had a lot of fun getting to that point and can recommend this game to anyone with even a passing interest in roguelikes or deckbuilders.
Time to beat (Main+Extras) – 40h:41m
Rating – 8/10
Minishoot’ Adventures
Minishoot’ Adventures (apostrophe intentional) is a top-down bullet hell metroidvania that has you pilot a sentient spaceship on a mission to rescue all your ship buddies that have been frozen by a rogue ship. There are hints of a dark backstory, especially if you go for all the lore tablets and the true final boss, but this is basically all you have otherwise. There’s no dialogue in the game and all the characters are sentient ships that express their emotions through beeps, hearts, and twirls. It’s all quite charming, but it does limit the story somewhat so I wouldn’t go into this game expecting anything too deep in the story department.
The basic gameplay loop involves exploring a large overworld littered with enemies, navigating intricately-designed dungeons, and taking out bosses to unlock new powers to explore different parts of the map. The game plays like a twin-stick shooter with the left stick moving your ship and the right stick firing your bullets. There are upgrades available that are pretty standard for games like this such as better guns, faster movement speed, and more health. There is a handy map to help with navigation that points to the next story objective, although dungeon maps are notably absent. After taking out the four bosses in each of the four main dungeons, the endgame dungeon opens up to fight the final boss and beat the game.
I am not typically a bullet hell fan, but this one seems more accessible than most (I played on original difficulty which is their version of normal). Even so, expect having to read enemy patterns and dodging a ton of bullets. I enjoyed slowly upgrading my ship and unlocking new areas, but sometimes figuring out where to go was frustrating, and a lot of the bosses had way too many phases for my taste. Getting 100% of the overworld map cleared was a particular pain point for me and I had to resort to looking up a guide to clear it and unlock the true ending. Despite getting more powerful as the game goes on, I never felt like it ever evolved past the opening hour. What you see at hour one is basically the same as hour ten when I wrapped my playthrough after checking out the endgame challenges. I enjoyed my time with the game, but it never felt like a particularly deep experience. Even so, I recommend it to fans of the bullet hell or metroidvania genres.
Time to beat (Main+Extras) – 9h:47m
Rating – 7.5/10
I AM YOUR BEAST
I AM YOUR BEAST is a fast-paced first person shooter where the goal is to get through each of the 26 main levels as quickly as possible. The gameplay is similar to Neon White, albeit without the card system or fantastical environments. The objective for most of the levels is to kill all the enemies, although there are a handful that want you to use laptops scattered around or destroy radar equipment. When you beat a level, you’re graded based on how quickly you completed it, with certain kill types scoring more points than others. You also unlock bonus objectives to encourage replaying levels differently such as not killing anyone or killing people with a certain type of weapon. There were a couple times throughout the very short campaign where it was necessary for me to go back to replay an earlier level to complete more objectives, but it wasn’t anything too egregious.
I’m not a speedrunner and tend to take my time when playing games, but I must admit it was satisfying to see myself improve after playing a level enough times to the point where I was zooming through it getting headshots left and right. The gameplay loop wasn’t as addicting as Neon White though, and I found myself unmotivated to go for A-ranks as the campaign progressed. There are only a couple enemy types and one “boss fight” with a helicopter so there wasn’t a ton of variety even with the multitudes of weapons available. I think the thing that surprised me the most and helped bump my score up was the voice acting. There are only three main characters that sometimes talk to each other between levels, but they all had incredible performances that helped keep me invested in the story. The responsiveness in the controls and rock-solid performance meant the game never got in the way of me mowing through the bad guys, which is essential in games like this. There’s also a meaty set of epilogue levels, as well as super-hard challenge levels if you really want to test your skills. If you’re in the mood for a quick FPS with a surprisingly intriguing story and don’t mind the lack of variety in the gameplay, I think I AM YOUR BEAST will be worth your time.
Time to beat (Main+Extras) – 4h:40m
Rating – 8/10
Stats
The year to date pie chart is getting mighty full, perhaps this wasn’t the best way to convey this information 😅 In any case, you can see that Balatro shot up to my third most played game this year, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I stuck with it much longer than I planned to, which just goes to show how addictive it can be. Final Fantasy VI squeaks in at #6 appropriately enough. Now five of my eight most played games in 2026 are Final Fantasy games which isn’t too surprising.
August marks my second highest acquisition month in stark contrast to July. This was fueled mainly by the itch.io charity bundle I mentioned earlier. The spending subsequently shot up as well, but at least there was a good money spent to games acquired ratio. Lastly, I had my lowest recorded playtime since May and third lowest for the year. I’m not entirely sure what contributed to that, but 70 hours is still nothing to sneeze at. I’m still waiting for that magical 100-hour month, I think it’s doable!
Conclusion/Upcoming
I’m still focusing on the Game Pass catalog, with four out of five completions being through the service (Dragon Crystal being the exception). I’ve now completed all the Final Fantasy games available through it and I own most of the other games I plan on playing in the series, so it’s gonna be a while before I play another one. I didn’t see anything leaving the service in the first half of September that I would have time to beat, so next up on my list is Absolum. I’ve also got BALL x PIT and Little Rocket Lab queued up to finish out the month. I’ve been saying I’ll get to Little Rocket Lab for months now so it’s gotta happen eventually. I’m sure there will be another session or two of Tales of Destiny as well. I think we’re nearing the halfway point? Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Anyway, that’s gonna be it for me this month. I’ll see you all when September ends. Thanks for reading!
Backlog total: 4,612 (+169)
