Alright. December and 2025 are done and dusted. Tried out a decent selection of games, finished some. My favorite for the month is the one I’m still playing, The Temple of Elemental Evil. It’s been a mostly bug-free experience, which is a far cry from the original release which was so bug-ridden that I was never able to finish it. Outside of a single crash, the only issue I’ve had with the game is some weird thing where it won’t register keyboard commands for up to thirty seconds. It can be played mouse only, so it’s not a deal breaker or anything, but a weird bug nonetheless. I’ll finish this run over the next week or so. It is definitely a game with huge replay value including the ability to play as an evil party, with a story that accommodates all alignment choices. It’s pretty true to the original module as well (not the T1 original original release, but the T1-4 full adventure that bridges the gap between T1 and A1-4…IYKYK). Anyhoo….

December Completions

December Retirements

1. Poly Roam - Although there are some interesting ideas at play with this drive to the horizon type game, it’s also pretty broken.
2. ANGST: A Tale of Survival - This survival game isn’t broken, and the actual survival gameplay is pretty decent, but the combat is hella bad. I refunded this game.
3. BLADE.EXE - This is a pretty unique auto-battler. Your character doesn’t move. Because it’s also kinda a clicker, and you will be clicking upgrades and buffs and such. But it’s possible to end a run prematurely by clicking the wrong button(s). Fun, but kind of a one-trick pony and really made for leaderboard champs.
4. Jump Space - This is actually more like what Destiny 2 was before Bungie sunsetted everything to try and force people to buy the newest expansions, then also lied and claimed they just didn’t have server space or what have you (nevermind that games like ESO and FF14 never sunset stuff). It’s a lot jankier than Destiny 2 however. Still, there is a quality game here even though it couldn’t hold my interest.
5. Big Dig Energy - Maybe the best digging game. It has one fatal flaw though. If you leave the game and come back, it saves your gear progress, but all your digging is lost. Which is a significant issue.
6. Fishing Vacation - It’s just bad, lol.
7. A Simple Garbage Sorting Game - Cool idea. Flawed execution. It has some commonality with Portal, but not as good of course.
8. Assassin’s Creed Shadows - Actually is not even close to being bad. But, it does get hella repetitive. And even though the dual protagonists are both super cool, the voice acting isn’t, and the writing takes some unusual…ummm…leaps of faith. Decent game, but not nearly as good as Origin - Mirage.

And now the 2025 Completions List

1. Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness (Steam)
2. Forest Ranger Services: Episode 1 (Steam)
3. Under A Star Long Cold (Steam)
4. Zompiercer [NG+] (Steam)
5. A Conversation With A Magical Deer (Steam)
6. Year Unknown (Steam)
7. Qazaq: Son of the Sun (Steam)
8. Tree Hugging Simulator (Steam)
9. King Arthur: Knight’s Tale (Steam)
10. Utility for the Soul (Steam)
11. My monstrous roommate. (étude) (Steam)
12. Nobody Wants to Die (Steam)
13. Vendir: Plague of Lies (Steam)
14. Pyramid Curse (Steam)
15. The Auto Sort Is Broken (Steam)
16. Project Hailstorm (Steam)
17. Right and Down (Steam)
18. Luck be a Landlord (Steam)
19. Mouthwashing (Steam)
20. Megalith (itch.io) (https://nikita-kryukov.itch.io/megalith)
21. A Game About Digging A Hole (Steam)
22. Daiku no Medium (itch.io) (https://nikita-kryukov.itch.io/daiku-no-medium)
23. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami (Steam)
24. Trawl [3x] (itch.io) (https://houseofwire.itch.io/trawl)
25. The Fabled Woods (Steam)
26. Robotherapy (Steam)
27. Night Drive (itch.io) (https://flankstaek.itch.io/night-drive)
28. Causeway [2x] (itch.io) (https://yarnspinnergames.itch.io/causeway)
29. Wakamarina Valley, New Zealand (itch.io) (https://lushfoil.itch.io/newzealand)
30. Anthology Of The Killer (Steam)
31. PANELKI (Steam)
32. Mystery Stories: Mountains of Madness (Steam)
33. Wartales (Steam)
    33a. Wartales - The Tavern Opens! (Steam)
34. Silent Breach [2x] (Steam)
35. The End of You (Steam)
    33b. Wartales, Pirates of Belerion (Steam)
36. Relaxing Kite (Steam)
37. The Midnight Bus (Steam)
38. The Ultimate Death Clock (Steam)
39. Missing Hiker (Steam)
40. Lantern of Worlds - Layla’s Quest (Steam)
41. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (Steam)
    41a. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader - Void Shadows (Steam)
42. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Steam)
43. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (Steam)
44. Cargo (Steam)
45. Starless Abyss (Steam)
46. Nothing But the Silent Deep (Steam)
47. I Got Hired To Guard The Button That Destroys The Earth (Steam)
48. Zompiercer [NG+ After Update] (Steam)
49. Zompiercer [NG++] (Steam)
50. Cyber Knights: Flashpoint (Steam)
51. Clawfish (Steam)
52. Condo (Steam)
53. RATSHAKER (Steam)
54. This Is Not Your House (Steam)
55. Sumerian Six (Steam)
56. Dystopika (Steam)
57. The Simplest Game in the World (Steam)
58. All Fridges Are Psychotic (Steam)
59. Neyasnoe (Steam)
60. I Am Busy Digging A Hole (Steam)
61. A Game About Mining Rocks (Steam)
62. Au Revoir (Steam)
63. Dust Raiders (Steam)
64. Asteroid Requiem (Steam)
65. Terminus: Zombie Survivors [Terminus] (Steam)
66. Terminus: Zombie Survivors [Fortified House] (Steam)
67. A Doctor’s Term (Steam)
68. A Game About Flicking A Switch (Steam)
69. Old Skies (Steam)
70. Dustwind: Resistance (Steam)
71. Amerzone - The Explorer’s Legacy (Steam)
72. Serious Sam 3: BFE [co-op] (Steam)
73. Clue/Cluedo (Steam)
74. Lil Gator Game (Steam)
75. The Chess (Steam)
76. Beyond Galaxyland (Steam)
77. Neon Hearts City (Steam)
    78a. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (Steam)
78. Cyberpunk 2077 (Steam)
79. Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 3 (Steam)
80. POOLS (Steam)
81. It Takes A War (Steam)
82. Avernum 2: Crystal Souls (Steam)
83. Songs of Rats (Steam)
84. Queen of Moths (Steam)
85. Stories from the Outbreak (Steam)
86. Kong: Survivor Instinct (Steam)
87. LiDAR Exploration Program (Steam)
88. Far Fishing (Steam)
89. Spilled! (Steam)
90. Dragon Ruins (Steam)

2025 Retirements

1. Dustland Delivery
2. Relaxing Simulator
3. Untravelled Planet
4. WhereHurt
5. Bunny Guys!
6. Cozy Campzone
7. Isle of Jura
8. REKA
9. The Dead Await
10. Neon Blood
11. Oikospiel Book 1
12. Right and Down and Dice
13. Frostpunk 2
14. Worshippers of Cthulhu
15. BioEntity
16. SpHero
17. Wartales - The Pits
18. Wartales - The Skelmar Invasion
19. Gone Golfing
20. Galactic Vanguard
21. Zeno Clash
22. Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers
23. Goldenheart
24. Roots of Harmony
25. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl - Enhanced Edition
26. Talented
27. No Sun to Worship
28. Neva
29. Metal Slug Tactics
30. Starless Abyss
31. Envyus
32. Animal Well
33. Endless Miles
34. A Game About Mining Rocks
35. Fur and Fables
36. Deep Space Cache
37. Psychopathy Assessment
38. Return
39. Grim Tides
40. Cosmic Parkour: Infinite Journey
41. Supermoves: World of Parkour
42. Ertugrul of Ulukayin
43. CONDEMNED TO BE FREE
44. Forever Skies
45. CONCRETE
46. Twelve Minutes
47. Quantum of Hope
48. Picklock
49. Rolly
50. Qume: Echoes of Sand
51. Pinball Squire
52. Cybarian: The Time Travelling Warrior
53. Jumpbound
54. Wandering Trails: A Hiking Game
55. Short Snow
56. Red Dead Redemption
57. Arctic Drive
58. The Last Sanctum
59. Ruins
60. Look Outside
61. Liminal Shift
62. Shatterland
63. Spin Hero
64. Swat Commander
65. Alan Wake 2
66. Poly Roam
67. ANGST: A Tale of Survival
68. BLADE.EXE
69. Jump Space
70. Big Dig Energy
71. Fishing Vacation
72. A Simple Garbage Sorting Game

2025 Persistent/Paused Games

ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN - Tons of fun. Could benefit from a stable group though.
Lords of the Fallen - Better than I expected, but also kind of annoying once you get to bosses that can heal themselves and otherwise cheese battles. IDK. I may or may not pick it back up.
The Planet Crafter - Planet Humble (actually paused due to the death of my crafting/building game co-op partner just before the holidays). Not sure if I’ll play it again, honestly.
Serious Sam 4 Co-op. IDK. Everyone’s interest kinda faded on this one, but there’s still a chance we’ll dive back into it.
American Truck Simulator - The game never ends. I play this when I don’t have anything specific I want to play or when I just want to go sight-seeing. It’ll be on this list likely every year.

Plans for January

I’ll wrap up this run of The Temple of Elemental Evil and then probably jump into Clair Obscur. Beyond that I’ve got a chunk of other SG wins I’d like to try to get to as well as gifts and purchases from this Steam Winter Sale. We’ll see how it goes. :)

RobbyRatpoison's December BLAEO Review

Summary of 2025

I think I can consider the last year as very good for my backlog. The total amount of finished games is lesser than in 2024, but I have started to play some longer games that will take me some time to complete. Overall, I am happy about the progress we made on my Steam backlog in 2025 - 40 games were completed and 9 games were beaten. I even managed to finish a few games on my other platforms too - 1 on Uplay and 5 on Gog… which makes it 55 games finished in total! 🥳
The amount of new games on Steam is 56 - a significant drop when compared to the previous years. ^_^ I actually find it quite magical that 2025 ended with a very similar number of new games as the year 2015 (51)!

Steam replay stats are yet again very nice so feel free to check it out. Just try to ignore the Onmyoji… 😅

Same as every year, I plan to continue with PAGYWOSG and Blaeo Monthly challenges. I will also be working on my long-running challenges like ABC or Lifetime… I am thinking of doing an extra ABC challenge just for Gog… will see about that yet. ^_^
An extra challenge for this year is an anniversary challenge 2016 → 2026! My aim is to play at least 12 games that I purchased in 2016 - of course, the more the merrier. :)

Happy New Year!

• Steam library stats
• Steamgifts wins stats
• List of assassinated games
• New games
• Playtime over the years
• GoG stats

★2025 BACKLOG OVERVIEW

December 2025

• ANIMAL WELL
  

  19.4 hours playtime

  19 of 20 achievements

• Frostrain
  

  19.4 hours playtime

  19 of 20 achievements

• Marsupilami: Hoobadventure
  

  5.0 hours playtime

  36 of 72 achievements

• Blanc
  

  3.0 hours playtime

  11 of 13 achievements

,

Ugh - just lost my mostly complete longer writeup. Here’s a shorter one.

Animal Well: A metroidvania with an interesting and original set of tools that allow new puzzles. If all you want to do is play through, see what you see, and roll credits then it’s a 9/10. If you want to collect everything, then it’s an 8.5/10 with not enough warps/shortcuts to deal with the backtracking. And you will be backtracking. Collecting the office key was particularly frustrating (I solved it correctly, but actually doing what needs to be done took 20++ attempts on my gamepad). And beyond that, if you continue playing then you reach a point at which you basically cannot progress without either a horde, some datamining skills, or a walkthrough. Or just watch somebody do it at that stage.
Frostrain: Strategy-lite clearly inspired by Snowpiercer. Unbalanced (most strategies don’t scale enough to deal with the punishing tax system), and resources (Training, Zeal) that you would think would impact mechanically/strategically don’t. Excellent for free, though (8.5/10)
Marsupilami: Hoobadventure: Good controls and reasonable levels but fatally flawed in its collectable design: 100 Fruit gives a life. There are massive quantities of fruit in every levels. There are time challenges that give fruit. There are secret areas that give fruit. There are hidden chests that give fruit. You will easily reach the maximum 99 lives. Would have been so much stronger with no lives, and only 100 collectable fruit in each level. (7/10)
Blanc: A fine twin-stick cinematic action-adventure. (8.5/10)

Report #21 December

Hello there, probably will keep things short this month as not many games this month, plan was to play a bit more but the backlog always wins so it is what it is.
So starting with the stuff that I won't make new boxes as just playtime went up. The usual way too much time into firestone and the few daily logins on wild west saga, close to the end of the year went back a bit to idle slayer as the game got a new update and i'm towards purchasing most of the new stuff(on last login i ultra prestiged to start farming for some keys to get a decent stuff but quit midway so was with almost no progress, defeated the boss that gives you the new stuff to buy at first login buuut probably in the next few days will be able to get to the gold required to buy the stuff, not sure if I will continue on my keys farming or just quit again until next update); on the beginning of the month did my weekly cs drops but after the holiday season started kinda skipped it, also finished few more of the classics in Nonogram - The Greatest Painter, think I still have 4 left but failed multiple times on them so most likely never coming back to them.

Now to the "big games": managed to finally get to level 50 and get the final achievement in battlefront 2 on first wednesday of december, partly due to getting two good maps in which i made the progress that i was usually doing in 5 maps, managed to finish with Picross Fairytale - nonogram: Red Riding Hood secret, got the missing achievements from Metal: Hellsinger, finished with both ETS2 and ATS world of trucks events as well as getting all the achievements from the latest launched dlc map expansions, will have to tryhard and get the driving school achievement but leaving that for another time, started and finished Cats Hidden in Japan and Immortals of Aveum, Aveum was an okay experience, probably if they would've cut some corners to budget the game to go into a 40-50 price range it would've got a better reception as the 70 price tag(on an indie dev especially) surely pushed a lot of people away from it. Also started The Plucky Squire towards the end of the month but didn't got the time to finish it.

• STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II
  

  40 hours playtime

  43 of 43 achievements

• Picross Fairytale - nonogram: Red Riding Hood secret
  

  93.5 hours playtime

  16 of 16 achievements

• Metal: Hellsinger
  

  8.1 hours playtime

  28 of 28 achievements

• Euro Truck Simulator 2
  

  864.9 hours playtime

  99 of 105 achievements

• American Truck Simulator
  

  309.7 hours playtime

  116 of 125 achievements

• Cats Hidden in Japan
  

  1.5 hours playtime

  100 of 100 achievements

• Immortals of Aveum™
  

  35 hours playtime

  47 of 47 achievements

• The Plucky Squire
  

  3.7 hours playtime

  7 of 24 achievements

Even thought they mostly finished also leaving here a happy holidays, and a happy new year and see you next time and happy gaming in the meantime!

2025 Year End Summary

Games Played This Year

• Tick Tock: A Tale for Two
  

  3 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Among Us
  

  11 hours playtime

  12 of 33 achievements

• Beat Saber
  

  22 hours playtime

  19 of 26 achievements

• Everything
  

  2 hours playtime

  14 of 36 achievements

• Journey
  

  2 hours playtime

  3 of 14 achievements

• Patrick's Parabox
  

  8 hours playtime

  17 of 22 achievements

• SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake
  

  10 hours playtime

  27 of 44 achievements

• Superliminal
  

  3 hours playtime

  6 of 27 achievements

• THE GAME OF LIFE 2
  

  6 hours playtime

  7 of 10 achievements

• The Inner World
  

  8 hours playtime

  15 of 23 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack
  

  3 hours playtime

  5 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 2
  

  4 hours playtime

  8 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 3
  

  6 hours playtime

  8 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 4
  

  18 hours playtime

  11 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 5
  

  4 hours playtime

  10 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 6
  

  4 hours playtime

  6 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 7
  

  4 hours playtime

  7 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Survey Scramble
  

  7 hours playtime

  7 of 10 achievements

• Bloons TD 6
  

  25 hours playtime

  27 of 153 achievements

• Day of the Tentacle Remastered
  

  3 hours playtime

  9 of 58 achievements

• Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!
  

  3 hours playtime

  0 of 50 achievements

• Mega Man Legacy Collection
  

  23 minutes playtime

  0 of 24 achievements

• PEAK
  

  14 hours playtime

  12 of 54 achievements

• SPLITGATE: Arena Reloaded
  

  38 minutes playtime

  1 of 23 achievements

• STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II
  

  3 hours playtime

  0 of 43 achievements

• SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
  

  7 hours playtime

  10 of 14 achievements

• Tetris® Effect: Connected
  

  28 minutes playtime

  1 of 43 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 9
  

  73 minutes playtime

  0 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 10
  

  18 minutes playtime

  3 of 20 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 11
  

  2 hours playtime

  4 of 20 achievements

Stats

Statistic	Value	Winner	Change From Last Year
Played to Beaten Ratio	60%		-14.2%
Played to Completed Ratio	3.3%		-12.8%
Games Acquired	51		+11
Acquired to Played Ratio	58.8%		-18.7%
Acquired to Beaten Ratio	35.3%		-22.2%
Acquired to Completed Ratio	2%		-10.5%
Most Played Month	21 hr 20 min	December	-36 hr 26 min
Most Played Game (Overall)	13 hr 37 min	PEAK	-39 hr 26 min
Most Played Game (Per Played Month)	9 hr 39 min per month	SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake	-43 hr 24 min
Most Achieved Month	28 Achievements	May	-33
Most Achieved Game (Overall)	27 Achievements	SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake	-10
Most Achieved Game (Per Played Month)	27 Achievements per month	SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake	-10
Most Months Played	6 Unique Months	The Jackbox Survey Scramble	+2

December 2025

Body Pay

7/10

2 hours

33 of 33 achievements

More

You’re a store clerk who has to scan enough items from their ludicrous shopping habits so that they can only pay using an app called Body Pay. Admittedly… the gameplay is a little more addicting than I’d like to admit. Just press the corresponding key for the item that comes your way but being able to do so in rapid succession almost puts you in a flow state and I found myself trying to get to ever higher combos and scores. After a few levels you get a story scene. They are fine, but sometimes lack adequate context or translation. The real bummer is that the final scene is just an image… all that build up and you don’t get a real final payoff which sucks because they often offer decent ideas just don’t allow you to follow through.

Recommend? Pretty cheap and embarrassingly addicting. Has some decent animations for what is available. Has questionable tastes and the MC is kind of rude.



Busty Idol Manor

4/10

3.8 hours

no achievements

More

Your husband has been brought back to life thanks to a wish, but now you have to run a brothel to complete your end of the bargain. Decent scenes but there’s just not much to the game. You pick the girl who’s working for the day and then choose the client for a specific scene. No scenes have any particular progression for choosing them again and the lewd meter/meetings do almost nothing. This sucks because in order to get endings you will have to repeat a lot of scenes to meet the quota and it is just… the same. The characters have some alright differences but not everyone gets the same amount of content which is a shame considering I was looking forward to one in particular.Also great googly moogly are those some massive mammaries… a bit too massive personally.

Recommend? Not really, scenes are alright but there just isn’t much to the game. Apparently this is a spin-off of an actual series, but I’ve never heard of it before. Devil Carnival. Has a cheating focus.



Daily life with my succubus boss

7/10

5.2 hours

22 of 22 achievements

More

You loathe your boss and her acts of belittlement towards you. Yet, while trying a silly little spell at night you accidentally summon a succubus that looks JUST like her, and now are in a pact. Going forward you must house, feed, and grow affection for your new demonic housemate. This game is very similar to the Kaiju Princess games. In those you spend stamina daily to either grow your army, make money, conquer cities, or grow affection. It’s a balancing act, but in this it lacks the balance as you ONLY spend stamina to grow affection. This gameplay and lack of consistent variety makes this game VERY repetitive. As nice as the woman looks and with decent animation, it’s just too much of the same most of the time and you run out of reasons to spend money quite fast. Still, there is quality and some of the best moments aren’t of the lewd variety but wholesome when you grow enough affection and she does cute things for you. There is also a surprising bit of story put into this though it only really is present at the very end.

Recommend? Generally yes but be prepared for a slog in between clothing/scene unlocks.



Fallen Kunoichi ~Netorare Hidden Village~

6/10

3.0 hours

13 of 13 achievements

More

Trying to get out of the ninja business you are tasked with going undercover to stop a drug ring in a nearby village. Unfortunately the path forward is wrought with deception and depravity that you’ll subject yourself to in order to get there. Outside of more scenes, the game doesn’t utilize any of the stats you gain other than lewdness and that barely affects the ending. As enjoyable as the scenes can be, it really lacks direction or fulfillment as far as progression. Mostly you are just looking for the heart signs in hope you reduce the amount of aimless wandering.

Recommend? It’s enjoyable enough but feels like a lot of ideas were cut even to the point of a missing scene entirely. Definitely get it on sale if you do decide to show interest.



Innocent Grape

7/10

1.3 hours

no achievements

More

Your character is doing everything they can to experience it rough but often ends up in “humorous” situations often not getting what she wants. The main girl is pretty cute and I like her design. Though I wished some scenes were more expanded they all animate pretty well and as stupid as they can be some of the situations were kinda funny. Though it does have a rough fetish focus the game does give advice to avoid such things in real life, albeit relatively generic advice. It’s a bit shorter than I would like, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.



Iron Lung

8.5/10

1.7 hours

7 of 7 achievements

More

With the release of the movie so close I thought I’d finally check this out. You are a convict who will gain redemption after you pilot a fully sealed submarine and take pictures of key points in a blood ocean. Since you are fully sealed, you will need to utilize a map, coordinates, and a photograph camera to navigate the trenches. I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest horror indie of all time, but it does really well in the atmosphere department. The uneasy claustrophobic feeling from the small submarine, the uneasiness as you must navigate without sight, and the mysterious sounds and vibrations that occur during your travel. It just really builds up the tension in such a nice way that it is better than any jumpscare out there.

Recommend? Absolutely and can only hope the movie is able to do it justice.



Battlestations: Midway

5/10

7.9 hours

no achievements

More

Command a variety of sea based vehicles in World War II combat. Though you’ll always be piloting a boat, submarine, or plane/jet your real friend will be the map as you can command each squadron to tasks. Let me tell you that this IS necessary as otherwise you will have drawn out encounters if not flat out losing. Unfortunately if you don’t do the hefty amount of tutorial levels (like I did) you’ll miss out on how to play and brute forcing it is not advised. More or less the game is FINE but the AI can be more than aggravating and I don’t really like how it handles some encounters. Luckily most levels are short and with the correct know how, you can finish them pretty easily… at least on Rookie/Easy.

Recommend? Not really. The sheer amount you have to learn is a bit egregious and the gameplay can often be flat out frustrating even with some knowledge.



Blasphemous

8/10

18.9 hours

35 of 45 achievements

More

Metroidvania with a medieval religious focus. I’ll be honest I didn’t fully understand the story and it talks in a very medieval fashion so I understood even less than I would normally. Basically everyone is big time sin and your path is meant to sort of pay off(?) the sin. The game was more fun than I expected though it has some issues in the controls department. Basically if you try to swing up while near a ladder you’ll climb the ladder instead. Similarly the down attack ability requires a normal attack first causing a pretty massive delay for an attack that barely has use as is. Lots of great bosses and the sort of rotoscope-looking art looks good. There are side quests but some have weird triggers and can be easily missed for doing what you should be doing in a metroidvania… and exploring/fighting bosses. Luckily most things aren’t missable but it’s still annoying when you are going for a 100% playthrough and it doesn’t explain well why it happened. Some bosses can also get pretty annoying with limited attack windows or mechanics but overall are fairly easy.

Recommend? Yes, I definitely enjoyed my time, the collabs, and the free DLC updates.



Cave Story+

6/10

6.6 hours

33 of 76 achievements

More

Bite sized metroidvania that has a lot of charm. Unfortunately that wears off as later end game progression will have some easily missable actions that don’t make a lot of sense in a modern mind set. The finale is also brutal with having a super meat boy styled series of levels and back to back bosses without a checkpoint.

Recommend? I’m a bit salty so I’ll probably say no, but there are other people that will definitely vouch for this.



Darkest Dungeon

6.5/10

79.5 hours

70 of 120 achievements

More

I want to start out by saying the play time is a bit bloated due to me not understanding that you can use items on chests/curios to get better/consistent results. This game is brutal, it even gives you a message saying as much when you start the game. Recruit and ship out a group of 4 to various dungeons to find treasure and complete tasks in turn based combat dungeon exploration. However, the enemies often have a huge advantage and there are many mechanics that work against you including disease, lighting, insanity, and more. What little achievement you feel from conquering a dungeon is very quickly lost when you even lose a SINGLE party member as they are not only lost for good but you’ll have to retrain a whole new recruit if/when they appear. This isn’t too bad early to mid game, but late game when the dungeons get particularly cruel… it’s just completely disheartening and a slog since it takes time and gold that you will gain very little of.

Still working through the DLC and though I enjoy their themes… they also get a bit sluggish. Otherwise it’s decent enough if you don’t get too unlucky… but you will get unlucky VERY unlucky. A bit of a reluctant recommendation but a recommendation no less.



FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves

7.5/10

5.1 hours

17 of 42 achievements

More

Great comic book-style aesthetic. Solid fighting mechanics though I found it pretty hard to master (I also just suck). Getting free DLC characters is also a huge plus. There is a story mode that has you level up a fighter of your choice as you fight across the city with varying difficulty of opponents all while being voiced and even has an arcade mode for even more character stories. Customizable colors for costumes, plenty of music, and even some mini-games. Only real downside is that Ronaldo is in the game.

Fighter of Choice: Preecha



Half-Life: Source

7/10

5.5 hours

no achievements

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It’s half-life, I’m not sure what the difference between this and the other version is though it did seem more unstable as I ran into far more graphical glitches. Final battle aside, I did find my enjoyment of the game a bit more than last time. Definitely get the other version though as the issues seem far more common here.



Hi-Fi RUSH

9/10

10.6 hours

28 of 71 achievements

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If Devil May Cry had a rhythm focus you would get this. Every aspect of this game has charm. The vibrant cell shaded art style, how the entire world around you moves to the beat of the music, the quirky yet lovable characters, the music itself, great rhythm based combat, millions of references both from studio as well as pop culture, fantastic boss battles… it just all oozes charm and quality (which is why it’s crazy it got treated the way it did by the original publisher). Even if you are not good at rhythm games, you can still brute force your way through pretty easily but it does have a lot of tools to help you sync up if you want to maximize your gameplay. Unfortunately it does have it’s issues. Using the controller some inputs get easily bugged, though you can alt tab back and forth to fix it usually. Some characters do get some sudden developments but it’s relatively a minor issue.

Recommend? Absolutely, this game deserves every praise it gets and more.



Mafia II: Definitive Edition

5.5/10

23.6 hours

42 of 67 achievements

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Following a new protagonist, you get a probably more realistic scenario of mafia activities and crime. I.e. you won’t be wearing the pinstripes suits with the movie-like stereotypical mafia you get in the movies and a bit closer to that of the Sopranos. To be honest, the main character just wasn’t doing it for me and I miss the classic feel of the first game. If you are into GTA/GTA-like games this is probably more up your alley as it features more mechanics such as garages and more free roam aspects than the first. This also did NOT receive the same glow up as the first remake as it both does not look nearly as good nor does it perform particularly well. I’ve had this game crash repeatedly and when it’s not crashing there are some major graphical glitches that happen that literally shrink a part of the character’s head in cutscenes or stretch out faces to the extreme. Admittedly the banter between you and your friend Joe are really solid but the story otherwise is uninspiring. My biggest praise will be that the cars feel much better in this game and allow you to actually drift consistently. There are three expansions in this game and they all suck. The first two are just busy work score attack missions with almost no story. All of which aren’t made particularly well as they’ll give you ridiculous objectives while punishing you for nearly impossible criteria like citizen/police casualties.

It’s decent enough but the performance issues are just too much for what feels like an inferior game to the original.



Monica's Newlywed Life

9/10

22.6 hours

no achievements

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Monica and her party were on their way to defeat the demon lord when they suddenly hear he was defeated. Marrying a party member, Monica now attempts to settle with them in an overcrowded town but needs a million gold to stay there. Taking on various jobs she risks corruption in the pursuit of money and a new home.
Frankly, this is more or less the same as any other game with a similar premise. The perks are as follows: Other party members are now available for more scenes, generally a greater variety in scenes, it allows the male character some redemption/payback (though still at his expense), and the ability to change bust size at will.

All in all enjoyable content but don’t expect leaps and bounds in difference between games with a similar premise (i.e. Leanne’s Slice of Life)



Nihilumbra

6.5/10

1.8 hours

9 of 24 achievements

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You are a voidling that successfully escapes the void into the real world. Now with all these new experiences at your feet, you run for your freedom from the ever encroaching void. An alright little puzzle platformer that has a nice puzzle mechanic to it. The puzzle mechanic is that you gain colors to use on the world around you augmenting movement or abilities. This includes things like faster movement, slower movement, bouncing, etc. You’ll use these colors to traverse the world while avoiding both the void and the creatures it summons. Another interesting thing is that the narrator is constantly questioning your right to existence in a way that is similar to how one might feel empty and self doubt. It’s more than relatable and sort of a good message to conquer these thoughts for those who play. Some puzzles are a bit wonky, it felt, and enemy hitboxes are just far too big. Still, fun enough with decent progression though I hear the hard mode is far too brutal.



Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds

6.5/10

2.1 hours

19 of 46 achievements

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Side scrolling beat ‘em up featuring cute girls with big weapons.The game has a surprising level of depth with lots of different movesets, skills, great pixel animations, and even foreground to background transitions. Story is there and it's fine but I didn't really pick up on everything and not sure if different characters get different stories. Some battles are a bit rough and maybe they are balances for co-op but as a single play through you can very easily get stuck in a stun lock. Also, moves/abilities aren’t particularly explained so you’ll have to do a lot of testing to see what works.



Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

6/10

23.0 hours

31 of 47 achievements

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Revisit (originally played on console). My feelings towards this game pretty much the same as the last time I played it though now I did get the co-op experience. Overall, still too grindy and the mini-arenas are too repetitive. The create-a-character and malleable classes are neat but offer little for gameplay. Will warn you in advance, outside of the new class in one of the DLC… do not get them.



Tormented Souls 2

7.5/10

19.5 hours

24 of 33 achievements

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Continuing from the true ending of the last game, Caroline now attempts to get help for her sister only to end up in another messed up situation. It continues it’s survival horror genre while adding new things like fully animated faces, better voice acting, and upgradeable weapons. Combat is more or less the same but with a greater variety of both enemies and weapons. Puzzles are all generally solid, often giving you the tools you need within the game, but there are two (from memory) that still puzzle me to the intended solution or that may require additional knowledge not given in game (religious based reference). Bosses are much improved as they often have some mechanic that involves more than just running in a circle and shooting. Oh and you can move and shoot/reload too. Enjoyed the mystery of the story though some plots felt sidelined. It might have been that it’s a newer game and I haven’t upgraded my PC in a while but the game was pretty buggy. Anytime I launch the game or go into a completely new area it takes a WHILE to load and even then sometimes lighting will not load in right away either. Sometimes enemies and/or myself can get stuck on geometry and anytime I go in and out of my inventory my character would stutter trying to move until I gave it some extra time. There’s also a later area that I loath due to infinitely spawning enemies which in a resource dependent game… not great.

Really enjoyed my experience overall but the game needs some serious fixes.



Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion

3/10

3.6 hours

15 of 35 achievements

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Kind of an odd entry. Instead of following John Turok (I don’t know the actual name) you get to choose between either a female or male character to play through this micro-sized game. Each character has their own traversal mechanic and weapons though they’ll be mostly traversing the same levels. This is probably why the game is so short as they likely expected you to play both characters… but the game is still insanely short. Only a small number of chapters each with the smallest of levels… and I mean small. Some levels are as short as a couple of hallways and need to load each one separately. That being said, the final chapter is absurdly long and feels really padded in an annoying way. Enemy AI, though hard hitting, often feel dumb as they will shoot a few inaccurate shots before running forward and repeating. It’s kind of a shame because I wanted to like this more as the gun play feels decent and the new characters are a neat idea. Not to mention the music is not nearly as oppressive in this as the last one was.



Nintendo DS

Pokemon: Black

4/10

0 hours

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I originally skipped this as I was moving away from Pokemon games at the time and (admittedly) the garbage and ice cream pokemon didn’t do any favors for my interest. Now, after all these years, I have finally played the one pokemon generation I missed… and I feel totally validated for judging this game as I did. Though it has neat things like a modular first gym, I found my experience with the game grating. There was just an unusual amount of RNG working against me where enemy pokemon would critical hit me… A LOT. Literally, a level 10 rock pokemon hit three crits in a row, I couldn’t believe it. Also, the electric gym sucks every step of the way including the absurdly difficult gym boss it has where the pokemon will do massive damage even against types it shouldn’t be effective to. I have eased up on my problem with the ice cream pokemon but honestly I didn’t care for about 90% of the pokemon introduced in this game and that’s not just the literal garbage pokemon either. The pokemon I did like I often found were weak and/or always had common type disadvantages (also why does every pokemon know a dark move except for the dark cat pokemon… it also sucks to be a fan of ghost pokemon in this gen…). I didn’t care much for the villains of this game though it did have a more unique ending. What really amazes me is what the game does with it’s visuals. It totally takes advantage of the DS and offers great ways to be 3D moreso than the 3DS (and onward) Pokemon games ever did. I can’t comment on the music as I usually play these games on mute.

Team: Serperior, Glavantula, Krokorok, Chandelure, Venipede, Gothitelle (how is this not a Dark Pokemon)



Gameboy Color

Resident Evil: Gaiden

3/10

4 hours

no achievements

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When I first tried this I ended up softlocking myself. Thanks to a recent event I found myself giving this another chance and finally was able to beat yet another Resident Evil Game with only RE Outbreak left on my list. Conceptually this game is kind of neat. First off, a Resident Evil game on the Gameboy is odd but we also get a Barry and Leon protagonist double whammy on top of a unique battle system. Encountering a zombie puts you in a battle mode where you go first person and they approach you layer by layer. A bar appears with a constantly moving tile that when pressed attempts an attack. Basically line that tile with the enemies hitbox and you’ll get a hit and their hitbox gets bigger as they get closer but you also run the risk of getting hit. Each party member can be swapped mid battle and attack with an equipped weapon. The problem is that enemies can respawn but you still have limited resources meaning you can actually soft lock yourself especially since the knife can’t reach past the immediate layer and some enemies will attack from afar (or need to be pushed all the way back). Items also do not appear on screen but instead getting near an item will trigger an exclamation where you can then pick it up… so you’ll easily wander places not knowing if anything is there at all and potentially wasting resources on… nothing. The story isn’t particularly remarkable though we do feature a new sort of bioweapon and feels kinda similar to the overall B.O.W. of RE4. The music is also SUPER basic and honestly considered muting it during the more stressful moments. The difference between the style used for Barry's portrait and Leon's is kinda bizarre. It almost looks like they were made separately into two different games and then never coalesced the style.

Recommend? It’s an interesting experience but not executed very well. If by some crazy how you do run into this game, you can probably just ignore it unless you really want to experience everything in the series.



PS5

High on Life

2/10

17 hours

0 3 6 16

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I kind of know what to expect by now from these devs and the humor they strive for but man oh man was I just bored the entire time. If you aren’t familiar the devs brandish the Justin Roiland style of humor where someone just rambles incessantly (with maybe a 50 percent swear rate) for a very extended period of time in a way to feel like every line of dialogue is off the cuff rather than pre-written. That plus the “oh so random and shock factor” ideas. Though I enjoyed early Rick and Morty I just found this humor to be tiring over time. The gameplay itself isn’t nearly as creative as it makes itself seem. Sure, you’re guns are sentient and talk but the gun play is just so slow and most of the guns didn’t feel particularly good to shoot. Level designs are mostly fine but they are just a tad too big where even in hub areas it feels like it takes forever to get around. Bosses feel a bit jank and even have weird hit boxes though I’m pretty sure your character is far wider than they look.

Recommend? I think you’ll already know if it’s for you, but it’s definitely not for me.

December 2025

Didn’t have any completions this month, but I’ve been making a ton of progress on Balatro and CLANNAD, specifically. These are pretty long and enjoyable games, so I’m pretty happy with my current progress.

I’ve also been in EXTREMELY busy this month with finishing up finals, traveling to Las Vegas immediately after that exam was done for a bachelor trip for my friend, back to my place to finish another final, and then where I am currently at my parents’ place to attend a funeral and be with family for the holidays. Not to mention how hectic December is for my business, which is focused on selling and marketing products…

I don’t know why I’m saying this here, but 2025 has been an insanely busy year, and hopefully 2026 can bring many more completions and progress in many portions of my life! I’m wishing the best to anyone who is reading this as well. May 2026 bring wonderful things to all you precious souls!

(P.S. Please ignore the sheer number of games I’ve added this month. Most of these are gifts from wonderful members of Play or Pay, along with my Secret Santas and developers/publishers providing me with games…)

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Nothing fully completed this month ;)

• Balatro
  

  86.3 hours playtime

  28 of 31 achievements

• CLANNAD
  

  39.1 hours playtime

  9 of 22 achievements

• Minesweeper Ultimate
  

  0.9 hours playtime

  9 of 15 achievements

• Stardew Valley
  

  196.5 hours playtime

  40 of 49 achievements

• Risk of Rain 2
  

  39.9 hours playtime

  100 of 171 achievements