Retro Gaming

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: September 2025

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The Lancaster Leak (PC) – This is actually a trilogy of 20-30 minute games. An anthology that tells three different stories, each in a different style, and with an overarching plot thread that connects them all. Looking forward to more!

Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World (Switch2) – I’ve been wanting to replay this game ever since I finished it, and the new DLC was more than enough reason to do so. Still the best Kirby game, and now there’s even more of it.

Replay (PC) – A 7-minute-long indie horror where you play as a person playing a haunted video game. Gave off FNAF vibes despite not being anything like FNAF, and left me wanting more.

Let’s Talk Dragon Quest Heroes

Ten years ago, Square-Enix and Omega Force released a video game called Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below. It is a “musou” game, which means that it’s a generally mindless hack-and-slash game where you mostly just tear through thousands of hapless goons. It’s also a spin-off of the Dragon Quest series, but I think that part’s a little more obvious.

Nintendo did a similar thing with the Legend of Zelda the year before, Hyrule Warriors, which is a game that I played obsessively. Twice. I didn’t end up playing Dragon Quest Heroes, though, since I was poor at the time and had to be more selective about my video game purchases. But it has stuck in the back of my mind all these years. Ironically, now I have enough money to buy all the games I want, but there isn’t nearly enough time to play them all. The grass is always greener.

All that to say that I finally bought and started playing DQ Heroes the other day.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2025

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Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch2) – I expected to enjoy this game, but I never expected it to be one of the best games of the year. It’s Super Mario Odyssey 2 in a lot of ways, with a little Banjo-Kazooie and Minecraft sprinkled on for flavour. And the ending? This might have the most perfect final hours of a video game ever.

Under the Waves (PC) – A swimming simulator where you help a man overcome his grief (or not). It’s kind of like Firewatch by way of Subnautica, but also not as good as Firewatch because it’s like twice as long and a lot of the “gameplay” is really tedious valve-turning. I liked it, but could have liked it a lot more.

Christmas Night (PC) – Look, I like to have my let’s plays recorded months in advance, okay? This is a very basic haunted house kind of game with a little bit of stealth thrown in. Nothing special or ambitious, but it was free.

UFO 50: The First Row

A new game… compilation… thingy came out recently. I’m not sure when it launched on Steam, but it got shadow-dropped onto Switch last week. (Some) people were in quite a furor about it -apparently the game is quite good- so I dropped some fraction of a Benjamin and decided to see about it myself.

UFO 50 is a compilation of 50 very retro-styled games. Many are early 80s arcade quality, or not unlike more rudimentary NES games. That’s not to say that they’re all simple score-chasers! Oh my goodness, no! There are some like that, however, the game’s whole framing device is that these were lost games for a lost console that’s been retrieved and refurbished. And so you can play through the history of this console and watch as the games grow in quality and complexity. And that’s what caught my attention: it sounded very much like another Retro Game Challenge, which was a Nintendo DS game with a very similar premise that I remember very fondly. I quite wish I hadn’t sold it.

Anyway! UFO 50 is what I’m playing now, and today I want to tell you a little bit about the first ten games in the collection. Provided you’re looking at them in chronological order. Which is the default. So you should be. Enough preamble!

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2025

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Gestalt: Steam & Cinder (PC) – A totally average metroidvania. The gameplay is solid and the world design is good, but the unlockable skills are largely useless and the story is waaaaaay too wordy. Also the ending is poo.

Deltarune (Switch2) – It’s absolutely wild that somehow each chapter manages to be better and more mind-bending than the last. I guess that what happens when there are years of development between them. Hopefully the rest of the chapters are released in my lifetime!

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Secret of the Mimic (PS5) – A complete 180 from the unfinished mess that was Security Breach, I thought this game was genuinely really good. It’s a ton of fun, has plenty of variety, didn’t crash once, and has a plot that you could clearly follow from start to finish. Great success!

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2025

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Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana (Switch) – Did I need this remaster? No, not really. But I did need the arranged music CD that came with the special edition. And I had fun (let’s) playing it again, so it worked out in the end.

The Deadseat (PC) – I bought this because the three seconds of footage I saw on the Steam page looked exactly like something I would want. Little did I know that it’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, but in a car. Also, dark as heck and I quite enjoyed it.

It’s Just a Prank (PC) – This game is even darker than the last, but far too grounded and I did not enjoy it. I need a pretty thick level of abstraction to be able to stomach the themes present in this one.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: May 2025

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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (PC) – Soviet side’s done, so I’m calling it beaten. Looking forward to powering through the Allied campaign, too.

Iron Meat (PC) – A Contra-like with an excellent soundtrack from the same guys who made Prison City. Plenty of unlockables to provide reasons to play it over and over again, too. Which I will likely do.

BloodBark (PC) – An indie horror about chipping down trees that bleed and make you hallucinate. It sounds weird, and it is weird, but I had a great time with it. I look forward to sharing my let’s play when Spooktober comes around.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2025

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BloodRayne ReVamped (PC) – I probably would have enjoyed this to a greater degree if I’d played it back in 2002, but… Oof, it has not aged all that well. There are some good ideas in there, but it needs more polish and doesn’t feel cohesive.

Donkey Kong Land (GB) – I started this back in December, then promptly forgot about it. Why? Because it’s a poo-poo game. Well, not that bad, but it ain’t great.

HoloCure: Save the Fans! (PC) – I really only just booted it up to play a couple rounds, but there’s been an update that added a new stage and a bunch of new characters. Maybe more, I’m not sure. But I figured it was worth mentioning.

TE Video: Coming Soon (May 2025)

You probably know the drill by now. Right?

Amenti (PC) – Goes live on May 1st. Probably one of the most disappointing games I’ve played in a long time. Partly my fault because I expected a lot, partly the dev’s fault for making a crappy game. Watch it unravel in real time!

Crystar (PC) – A new chapter each Saturday morning, which will take us up through chapter 8, which is the game’s first ending. Stay tuned through June and July to see the others!

Prison City (PC) – The final episode goes live of May 5th. I really liked this game, and the Part 1 video kind of blew up (250+ views as of this writing), so I hope the rest do as well. Kind of want to go back to it to record a Bomb Mode playthrough or something.

Dead or School (PC) – May 8, 22, and 29 for parts 10, 12, and 12 respectively. This series hasn’t really picked up any interest at all. It was the most likely outcome.

The Mute House (PC) – A new episode each Monday from May 12 onward. This is a Resident Evil-style indie game, and it was quite fun to play through. I hope it’s fun to watch, too! (None of the channels I’m subbed to have played it yet…)

Save Room (PC) – A one-off on May 15. Kind of a filler episode, this is a game about inventory sorting, RE4-style. If you like watching other people do puzzles, you may get some enjoyment out of this.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: March 2025

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Monster Hunter Wilds (PS5) – Very good Monster Hunter game. Maybe a little too easy, and there’s a pretty slim selection of monsters to fight. Also the post-game story just kind of petered out… no big finale like we’re used to. Oh well! It was still a bunch of fun all the way through and I look forward to grinding hundreds more hours out of it.

Scary Shadow Spot: Bitter Glass (PC) – This is probably the most unique-feeling Doesn’t Matter game, but is in need of a lot of polish. I even encountered a game-breaking bug that forced me to restart the game halfway through. It took less than 20 minutes to recover my progress, but still. Big oof.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (SNES) – This would be a much more frustrating game without NSO’s rewind feature. That’s all I want to say.