Happy birthday to the resident Xenoblade Chronicles superfan (excluding X), heroine to cats everywhere, and 4x winner of the Nobel Peace Prize*, @jessicavotaw.bsky.social! *As accurate as I'm able to determine based on no research. Money may or may not have been exchanged.

To my surprise, I enjoyed the Pragmata demo. Hacking enemies before I'm able to inflict damage reminds me of Alan Wake's shadow armor. I am worried that hacking will get tiresome long before credits, though. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVCn...

Hot damn, The Adventures of Elliot is looking quite nice. www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9gC...

Banjo-Kazooie. I found it dreadfully boring as a child. I’ve yet to give it another go as an adult to see if I hold the same opinion.

Got the DQ7 remake I’m hearing such good things about. 😁

Coincidentally, I posted my review for Alone in the Dark (1992) just yesterday. You can't go wrong with three games for free, but maybe check my review for an idea of what you'd be getting into: namevah.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/a...

Welp, due to censorship that wasn't previously disclosed, I was successfully able to obtain a refund for Dispatch. I'll just have to buy it on another console. 🤷‍♂️

It took almost a decade to port Disney Afternoon Collection to Switch. 😵‍💫

Prepared to experience Dispatch for the first time. It just has to unlock.

~ 2026 Game Completions ~ 04 ~ Vile: Exhumed (2025) / PC: I can't recommend this for gameplay, hence the score, but can for exploring unsettling and realistic topics, like parasocial relationships. Prepare to feel disturbed.

In solidarity with today's ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA blackout, MinnMax is donating $1 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for every share of this Bluesky post for the next hour.

"with Beyond, Tanabe wanted to leave players hesitant and conflicted up to the very last moment before pressing the A button to end the game" Given the reaction towards Beyond (bad, apparently), I'd say mission accomplished.

January’s fiction is read! 😁

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

I'm kind of digging this.

~ 2026 Game Completions ~ 03 ~ AM2R: Return of Samus (2016) / PC: An excellent remake of Metroid II that rivals Nintendo's Samus Returns, but the actual metroid fights aren't much fun. Surprisingly easy final boss, too.

Definitely made in response to the negative fan reaction towards Double Exposure. I wonder if this will also being Life is Strange as a series to a definitive close. It's not as though Square publishes a lot of other Western-developed games at this point.

I'm not saying that any of these people are like this, but Michiganders never learn to drive safely in unsafe conditions. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlNu...

Just to add a little extra salt in Nintendo's wound, I'm playing through AM2R with a Sega Genesis 6-button controller.

Yep, this tracks.

~ 2026 Game Completions ~ 02 ~ The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (2022) / Nintendo Switch: Everything that made the original so hilarious, now with new content. Whether the new is as funny is debatable, but I was amused.

Hold up, Spider-Man Remastered has only a $10 upgrade fee?! I was looking all around for Miles Morales Ultimate Edition at a decent price when all I needed was to spend $10 for Remastered? Why isn't that made more apparent on the PlayStation Store?!

Finally! One of the most acclaimed Fire Emblem titles is available for the masses without having to burn a few hundred on a used copy! Save states should help overcome the lack of Casual mode, hopefully.

~ 2026 Game Completions ~ 01 ~ Piczle Cross: Rune Factory (2025) / Nintendo Switch: Picross with a Rune Factory 3-5 skin, and enough regular and color puzzles to last 155 hours. Very rare performance issues, of all things.

A million in three months. Hopefully this convinces someone at Square Enix to at least greenlight ports of Tactics Advance and A2. Ah, probably not. This *is* Square Enix we're talking about.

I wonder what it would take for Capcom to hand Mega Man X to Inti Creates to develop an old-school sequel, a la Mega Man 9/10.

There are many things to love about Rami’s top 10 for 2025 but this is one of my favourites.

Looking to buy Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but I’m always looking at the version that comes with Spider-Man PS4, and that’s the version that never goes on sale for a decent price. 😓

He only intended to work five of those, but his leaving kept getting delayed. This was exacerbated when he had to be returned due to damage during delivery home.

Either I need to buy new HDMI cords or my PS5 needs to be less picky about the cables I insert into that janky hardware.

For the casual onlooker, here are my Top Ten games:

I ranked all games that I finished in 2025. That's 28 games! Please take a look: namevah.wordpress.com/2026/01/01/e...

I’m excited to hear. Into the Aether became my favorite gaming podcast during the past year. Keep up the excellent podcasting, gents. 😄

~ 2025 Game Completions ~ 37 ~ Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (2025) / Nintendo Switch 2: Unit customization is fun and I enjoyed the plot, but difficulty spikes, especially towards the end, frustrate a lot.

Bless gift cards. I love getting a $40, 1000+ pages novel for nothin’. 😄 Lovely cover, too.

Man, they weren't wrong about characters gained in the fourth chapter breaking Final Fantasy Tactics. That sort of imbalance should've been corrected in a remake or remaster. Oh wait.

Just in time for Xmas, the Final Fantasy X Retrospective is here! Learn about the creative decisions behind the game, the state of Square as a company after the failure of The Spirits Within, and the grander themes which may have eluded western players. youtu.be/f8PqQE_FbNc

A little late, but I visited the Christkindlmarket Chicago on Christmas Eve Eve. Busy, as usual, but I enjoyed some hot choco.

On this Christmas Eve, I wish everyone an exhausted and annoyed bah humbug.

Grind in Final Fantasy Tactics to unlock cool Jobs and Job abilities, but don't grind because it makes non-story battles fucking miserable.

~ 2025 Game Completions ~ 36 ~ Islanders: New Shores (2025) / Nintendo Switch: A points-based world-builder, as with the original, that's fun and relaxing. The new additions aren't revolutionary, but they're good.

Twelve fiction books across twelve months. One per month. For someone who reads slowly, this is quite an achievement. 😊

Search your camera roll for “hell”

Boy, a single game and a bunch of demos. Quite the year on Steam I had. I call it . . . I spent more time on GOG.

I understand that the EGM Compendium book was only available to backers, but is that true for the digital archive, too?

The idea that Samus thinks so little of these grunts that she doesn't bother speaking to them is a take that I wouldn't mind being true.

forgive me father for I have blogged simulacrum.pika.page/posts/but-th...

Confirm this, @geoffkeighley.bsky.social, you coward.

I’m watching The Game Awards the best way I know how: by not watching The Game Awards and checking out the announcements when Wario64 shares them.