“Weekly” Update #18: Game Pass to the Rescue!

April 27 – May 3, 2025

Hot off the heels of my April monthly post that’s almost a month late, here’s my first “weekly” post in quite some time. It’s taking a lot more time than I expected to catch up on all the posts I’ve missed, but I’m working on it! I had almost a full week of Game Pass so expect to see quite a lot of gameplay. Before we get to that, let’s see what games I picked up this week.

Game Acquisitions

This was a relatively small acquisition week, but all of these games were once again free! If I remember correctly, this was a Reddit giveaway, itch.io freebie, Steam freebie, and three freebies from a new storefront called Stove. I guess it’s a PC storefront owned by a Korean game developer and they’re trying to break into the western market with some giveaways. We’ll see how well that works, the website is confusing to navigate and they haven’t given anything away since this initial batch so it’s not looking great so far. Still, I’ll take any free games I can get if they look to be at least decent quality.

# of Games: 6

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

Game Recaps

So much playtime, and a variety of games too! This is the kind of graph I was envisioning when I started the blog, instead of just one or two entries per week. I didn’t expect to be playing long RPGs (or nothing at all), I really thought it would be more of a variety. Now that I have all my upcoming games mapped out, I can see that there are a lot of longer games on there and with the diminished free time I’ve had between in-office work, this blog, and YouTube, it’ll take quite a while before I’m back to my small unknown indie games. Bummer!

I got off on a little tangent there. I was just happy to finally see an interesting week reflected in my graph. I started out the week playing Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion in preparation for starting my Game Pass trial with the sequel Turnip Boy Robs a Bank. These are goofy cartoony games starring the deceptively cute Turnip Boy as he does crime. The first game is a 2D action-adventure game that plays kind of like the older Zelda titles. The second game pivots to a roguelite which was an interesting choice, although not one I necessarily would’ve preferred. You can read more of my thoughts in the Game Review section below, as well as watch my full playthrough of both games!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Premiere date: May 29th

Premiere date: May 30th

Premiere date: June 1st

Premiere date: June 2nd

In between both Turnip Boy games, I also had a Tales of Phantasia session with my friend. In these parts, we traveled to a mysterious castle, fought Demeter, found a new party member (she’s a spellcaster!), and made it to the capital city of Alvanista! Pretty good progress for less than two hours of game time if I do say so myself.

 

Premiere date: May 31st

To finish up the week, I played the super adorable game Little Kitty, Big City all in one session. It was a short and simple game about a cat who falls off their high-rise balcony during a nap and has to find their way back home. Along the way, you encounter various other talking animal friends who either help you out or ask for your help with their problems. It was pretty basic but charming nonetheless. My full playthrough is below, and I go a little more in-depth with my thoughts in the review.

 

 

 

Game Reviews

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank

The followup to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank decided to switch it up a bit by turning the action-adventure game into a roguelite with an emphasis on guns and bullet hell boss fights. Does the genre pivot work? I’d say for the most part it does, although it’s not one I would’ve preferred and it runs into the same pitfalls as other roguelike/roguelite games. After the revelation about his family history in the first game, Turnip Boy is recruited by the mob to break into the bank and make off with a rival mob boss’ money. There are two areas in this game: the bank itself which you have limited time to explore each run and the mob HQ you go to between runs to buy upgrades, unlock weapons, and talk to your companions for small story tidbits. The main floor of the bank is broken off into sections behind locked doors that you need various keycards to unlock. Each boss drops a keycard that unlocks the next area of the bank. There are also randomized elevators in various spots of the bank that lead to different rooms such as offices with vaults to break into, a sad muffin that wants to complete his rock collection, and even Hell itself ruled by a familiar face from the first game.

As you can see by my completion time, the developer’s succeeded in extending the runtime of this game through the various unlocks and randomized rooms. I would say that while the game didn’t overstay its welcome, the runs did start getting pretty repetitive which is the major roguelite pitfall I alluded to earlier. After a while, I felt that I was just going through the motions run to run hoping to encounter the right elevator I needed to complete one of the many side quests this game offers. There’s a certain story point about 75% of the way through that makes money totally meaningless going forward so subsequent runs were all about hoping to get the right elevators and taking down the four main bosses. I enjoyed the game, but it didn’t feel as tight knit as the first with a story that wasn’t as interesting. The developer has announced the third game in the series which is pivoting to an endless runner so they aren’t shying away from yet another genre shift so if you’re looking to get into the series, don’t expect every game to feel the same. There’s also an easy mode which should help with the bosses so don’t be put off by the bullet hell mechanics.

Time to beat (Completionist) - 7h:22m
Rating – 7.5/10

Little Kitty, Big City

Little Kitty, Big City is a short and sweet open world adventure game about a cat that falls off their favorite sleeping spot on a high rise balcony to the streets below and has to find their way back up. Along the way, they meet various other animals they can talk to through text bubbles that can either help the cat on their journey or ask for help with their own problems. The gameplay consists of wandering around the city by climbing and jumping on stuff, talking to animals for some side quests, and collecting fish to increase your stamina to climb even higher so you can get back home. The game is very short and simple and there is no combat to speak of. The money you get in the form of shinies is only used for the first stamina upgrade and optional hats with no gameplay benefits, so it can largely be ignored.

What this game lacks in gameplay and story, it makes up for in charm. It’s just a really cute game, and the animals you meet along the way have their own fun personality quirks and activities to do. You meet a tanuki that unlocks the “Petwork” fast travel system, a dog who has misplaced his favorite tennis balls, and a daddy duck who seems to have misplaced his children…again. Most of the interactions are optional, but then you’re missing the point of the game by not engaging with them. My other complaint besides the simplicity was using the map to find collectibles. Again, this is totally optional, but I spent way too much time trying to find some collectibles that appeared to be right next to me on the map but ended up being way above me on a rooftop or tucked behind a fence I couldn’t figure out how to get through. Still, if you like cats and don’t mind a short game without a lot of meat on its bones, you probably can’t go wrong with this one.

Time to beat (Main+Extras) - 4h:43m
Rating – 7/10

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Black Mirror Season 7 Episodes 4-6 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episode 10 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 2 Episodes 2-3 (still watching, show ended)

·       Arcane Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (complete)

·       Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The status in parenthesis for these shows is going by the day of writing which is May 26^th, not when this post was originally supposed to go up. It’s been a few weeks now but I remember enjoying all of these. Black Mirror continued the futuristic hellscape, and former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi was in an episode! My Little Pony was nice to get back to after some time off. Arcane was a hell of a show, absolutely fantastic. The story and visuals were top notch, and I’ve never even played League of Legends! Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a solid start to the modern Planet of the Apes Franchise, and I enjoyed the references to the original movie.

Conclusion/Upcoming

It’s rare to have three completions in one week. I really was taking full advantage of my Game Pass trial. You may notice that I’m not putting my backlog total at the end of this post. Unfortunately, while I did keep track of my game time and acquisitions, I wasn’t keeping a running total of my backlog at the end of each week. So many things to keep track of! I’ll add them back once I get back to my regular schedule. I normally say what games and movies/TV I plan on experiencing for the coming week, but since the following week has come and gone, I already know! I’ll leave it off by saying to please expect my next post hopefully in a day or two while I work on getting caught up. Thanks for reading!

Monthly Update #4: I’m Back!

April 2025

I feel like I owe an explanation for my brief absence that went on longer than I expected. At the end of my last post, I mentioned that I would be postponing my next post to take full advantage of my weeklong Game Pass trial. Well, that weeklong trial turned into a fortnight (not the game, this used to be a word people used!). As I was sitting down to finish up Mullet Madjack on the last day of the trial, I got a message saying my trial was expired…tomorrow. I was near the end of the game and suddenly my access to play it was cut off. I contacted Microsoft support to explain the situation and they gave me another week! So the first delay was due to the length of my trial being doubled.

The second delay was due to underestimating just how much time it would take to edit and upload all the videos. I spent like two weeks compiling and editing the literal 37 HOURS OF FOOTAGE I captured over the course of two weeks. It was quite the daunting task, but I got it done. Even as I type this, I’m still working on uploading it all to my channel. I’m trying to keep my videos to roughly an hour each, and I don’t want to bombard people with multiple videos a day, so I’ll only be uploading once daily. That means that, at least for a little while, the video links I post in my blog will go to videos that will be showing as private until their scheduled premiere date. But hey, that will give you a reason to come back  to my blog (or channel) everyday to see what new video is available! I’ll put premiere dates next to any videos that haven’t gone public at the time of posting so you guys know when to expect them. Since I’m behind on my blog posts, I’ll try my best to get those out every day or two until I catch up. No promises though, I have a lot of writing to do including several reviews and recaps so it may take a while. Maybe I’ll even get the May monthly post out in time! We’ll see.

Now with all the blog housekeeping out of the way, I just want to say that my two week Game Pass trial was very fruitful. Probably a bit of a spoiler, but I beat six whole games during that timeframe! It was nice to finally be beating games again after not even touching a single-player game for over a month. I haven’t played Torment: Tides of Numenera since March 23^rd, but I’m not giving up on it! It’s probably gonna be a while until I get back to it because I still haven’t finished setting up the emulators on my PC yet. I can’t even call it a new PC at this point, it’s been fully put together and used almost daily for weeks now. Once I catch up on my blog posts, finish the YouTube uploads, and have Playnite set up just the way I like, I’ll start it up again. It’ll be months between sessions so I’ll be very rusty, and I definitely have no memory of what I was doing. But I will get back to it eventually, I promise. On that note, I did make sure to continue tracking my playtime and game acquisitions during my hiatus, so let’s move on to that!

Game Acquisitions

A decent haul this month, and only $4.43 spent for all of them! 1000xRESIST and Wavetale were the only purchases this month. Everything else was a combination of Prime and Reddit giveaways, Steam family purchases, and itch.io freebies. I’m particularly interested in 1000xRESIST, Legacy of Kain, Dreams of Aether, and Thief. I played the 2014 Thief reboot but the general consensus is that the originals are better. We’ll see how well a game from the 90s holds up.

# of Games: 29

Total Money Spent: $4.43

Price/Game: $0.15

Game Recaps

This only reflects the beginning of my Game Pass trial. Still, I managed to beat one game and played two others which is not bad. Nothing was played the 1^st through the 4^th, the 6^th through the 26^th, or the 28^th which is crazy. If it wasn’t for Game Pass, I wouldn’t’ve played any single-player games at all! I really need to work on that. Another spoiler alert, but weekly post coming out right after this one has more game time than the entire month of April so look forward to that! Here are the playlists for the games I played:

 

 

Game Reviews

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a silly and short action adventure game starring the titular Turnip Boy as he runs around town doing errands for Mayor Onion to make up for not paying property taxes on his home. The premise is just as silly as it sounds. The game consists of talking to the other sentient plants, solving some light puzzles, and engaging in surprisingly competent combat. The game is on the easy side for the most part, although I did struggle a bit with the boss fight in the bunker. The story takes a surprisingly dark twist near the end, much more than I was expecting given the goofy tone up to that point. Nothing that would make it inappropriate for children, just a little more interesting that I was anticipating. There is a sort of roguelite mode on board an endless train that you get access to after beating the main game, but it felt very tacked on and unnecessary. The collectibles were mostly easy to find. I only had to look up a guide for a couple to get the true ending. I did beat the game in one sitting so it was very short, but I had a blast pretty much the whole time. Pick this up if you're looking for a goofy and colorful game that still manages to have decent combat and story elements.

Time to beat (Completionist) - 2h:56m
Rating – 8/10

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last month:

·       Shadow and Bone Season 1 Episode 1-Season 2 Episode 8 (complete)

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episodes 7-10 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       My Little Pony: Make Your Mark Season 2 Episodes 1-3 (still watching, show ended)

·       Black Mirror Season 7 Episodes 1-6 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       Arcane Season 1 Episode 1 (complete)

·       Moana

·       Moana 2

·       Sonic the Hedgehog 3

·       Red vs. Blue: Restoration

·       Planet of the Apes

The status in parenthesis for these shows is going by the day of writing which is May 26^th, not when this post was originally supposed to go up. The movies this month were hit or miss, but the shows were all pretty good. Moana 1 was a rewatch, I love that movie. Moana 2 was OK but a disappointment by comparison. Sonic 3 was maybe the worst of the Sonic movies so far. Red vs. Blue: Restoration was the movie that finally ended the long-running web series from Rooster Teeth which was subsequently shut down (and recently resurrected, we’ll see if anything comes of that). Planet of the Apes was better than I expected, and the costumes were really good for a movie from the 60s. Moving onto the shows, it looks like I watched the entirety of Shadow and Bone and Black Mirror Season 7 in April. Shadow and Bone was pretty good, although it ended on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Black Mirror was an interesting watch as always. I can’t exactly say it’s a fun watch because that show is consistently pretty depressing. My Little Pony is OK, it doesn’t really hold a candle to Friendship is Magic though. I barely squeaked in starting Arcane but I loved that show. I can’t wait to see what else they do in that universe.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Again, sorry for my extended leave of absence. It’s difficult to get back on track after a few weeks away. April was a pretty light month all things considered. May is almost over so I’m not sure what I can put in my upcoming section that won’t be revealed shortly anyway. Thank you for sticking with me. I’ll be posting to my blog periodically throughout the week to hopefully get caught up before June hits. I’ll make sure to keep a running tally of my total backlog so I can include it in my June monthly. Thank you all for reading, and expect my next post tomorrow!