I’ve been seeing a lot of love for the PS2 God of War games on my timeline lately, which put me in the mood to start God of War 2. The first game was fantastic, so my expectations for the sequel are pretty high.

Finished Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. It starts slow, and I get why the cheesy teen drama can be off-putting, but I think they built the girls’ friendship well, and I got invested in the characters and story. My only gripe are the weird graphical glitches, which I had plenty of.

Just a little post about my recent pickups! I loved the Turok games as a child, even though I never got very far in them because they were too difficult. Glad they got a port to modern consoles. System Shock and Odin Sphere are both games I’ve heard good things about.

Finished Doom (1993). I always thought this type of game wasn’t my cup of tea, but holy hell, did I enjoy my playthrough of this one. I love how fast paced and chaotic (in a good way) it is. Blasting demons while listening to some adrenaline pumping music is SO satisfying.

Finished Super Mario RPG. I just love how lighthearted and quirky it is. I also like the timed hits and blocks, which add a small but nice layer to the otherwise classic turn-based combat. The soundtrack is catchy as hell. The battle music has been stuck in my head for days now.

I knew that Link had a little cameo in Super Mario RPG, but I had no idea that Samus was also chilling in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Finished Paradise Killer. It’s a really stylish open-world mystery game where you investigate a murder on an island filled with a bunch of strange characters. I really fell in love with the characters, the story, the setting, the overall vibe, and especially the soundtrack.

I think today is a good day to start a playthrough of Super Mario RPG.

Finished Maiden of the Dark. A neat and sometimes quite tricky action-platformer. It is overall pretty fair though, so it never got too frustrating. Big fan of the artstyle in the story parts. The hitboxes are a little off, but other than that I enjoyed my time with this game.

Dusted off the trusty ol’ Game Boy Color to play a little Game Boy homebrew game I backed on Kickstarter.

Finished Mega Man 6. Such a nice swan song for the Mega Man series on the NES. The stages are beautiful, the robot masters are all really cool designed and it was overall pretty fair (except for maybe two annoying bosses near the end). The music is also very good and super catchy.

Finished As Dusk Falls. Awesome narrative-driven game, where your decisions genuinely matter, and you truly feel the consequences of your choices. If you are not a fan of QTEs, then this game is probably not your cup of tea, since that's basically all the gameplay consists of.

Finished Midnight Fight Express. Pretty cool isometric Beat'em Up with a surprisingly deep skill/combat system. The level and character designs are a bit basic, though it's neat that you can kinda create your own character. My absolute highlight was the sick EDM soundtrack.

Platforming games I love that aren't Mario or Sonic.

Finished God of War (PS2). I loved how cinematic it felt, and how fast and fluid the combat was. It isn’t without its flaws tho, especially near the end it becomes unnecessarily frustrating. The Story was pretty cool, and surprisingly kinda tragic too. Kratos is just a badass.

The current God of War hype wave kinda got me, which is why I’ll finally play the original God of War for the first time next.

Spent my Sunday watching Predator 1 and Predator 2 for the first time in ages. Especially the first Predator movie just brings a smile to my face with its over the top cast of manly macho men and their silly one-liners. But it also knows how to build suspense. It’s awesome.

Finished DuckTales (GB). I think that if you like the NES version, then you will probably have a great time with this game too. The levels are pretty much the same as on the NES, just simpler and more cramped. The music is also good, but sadly it lacks the NES version’s punch.

Finished Kathy Rain. I love me a good mystery, and that’s exactly what this game delivers. I didn’t expect the supernatural angle to go as deep as it did though, but I enjoyed it. It's fully voice acted, and the performances are great. Overall a pretty cool Point and Click adventure.

Finished Donkey Kong (NES). It only has 3 levels, because of the limited storage space on the early NES cartridges, instead of 4 levels like in the OG arcade ver., but it's still a neat little classic. Always liked the fun fact that the ape in this game is actually Cranky Kong.

New additions to my collection. I’ve always read and heard about Max Payne and its cool bullet-time mechanic, but unfortunately never actually got to play any of the games. I'm definitely going to play them soon.

Finished The Punisher. Watched the 2004 movie recently and just wanted to check out a Punisher game. It's actually a quite decent Beat 'em Up with a nice variety of weapons. It offers basically nothing you haven't seen in other 16bit Beat 'em ups yet, but it's still a fun time.

Finished DuckTales. It's been ages since the last time I played it, but it is still one of my favourites on the NES even after all these years. The pogo-jumping alone makes this game a blast to play. The soundtrack is SO good. It's packed with catchy 8-bit tunes across every stage.

As much as I love the Buster Sword and the Gunblade, my favourite weapon in the Final Fantasy universe will always be Brotherhood from FFX . I just love its translucent, glowing blue look.

Finished Superliminal. It started off with some nice perspective tricks but ended with my brain feeling like it would explode due to all the optical illusions and puzzles. I liked the message about how our perspective shapes how we face and overcome challenges in our lives.

Finished Cadash. A bit short and nothing too special in the realm of Action RPGs, but still a decent game. It can be a bit difficult if you don't grind early tho. It's a shame they removed the Priest and Ninja classes, which were originally in the arcade and TGFX16 versions.

Finished Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. I loved it. The Gadgets added a neat layer to an already pretty fun combat system imo. It’s rather short for a LAD game, but the story still hooked me. The ending both warmed and broke my poor heart at the same time.

Well, the year is pretty much over, so all that’s left for me is to wish you all the best for the year ahead. Happy New Year. 🍾

Cool guys don't look at explosions. (The Gadgets are pretty damn fun in this game.)

My top 10 favourite games I played this year. I haven’t beaten as many games as in previous years, but I still played and caught up on a bunch of pretty awesome ones. So, I’m pretty happy with my 2025.

Besides spending time with my family, I will probably just eat a lot and watch old Christmas movies over the next couple of days, starting with Home Alone. Happy holidays to you all!

I'm probably not going to beat it this year, but I wanted to at least start a new Yakuza/Like a Dragon game in 2025. I'm also just glad to play as my boy Kiryu again.

Grabbed the platinum in Forspoken, too. At first, I didn’t want to go for the platinum because I was overwhelmed by all the side stuff, challenges, skill upgrades, etc., but I somehow ended up doing most of it during my casual playthrough, so I just finished the rest as well. 😅

Finished Forspoken. Sure, some of the dialogue (esp. at the beginning) and Frey’s rude, selfish attitude can be annoying, but I still think this game gets too much hate. The combat is probably my highlight, and parkouring across the world is also fun. The story is alright too.

I love the cute little cats in Forspoken.

My 2025 PlayStation Wrap-Up. Nothing spectacular going on this year, especially when it comes to trophies. I’m glad I finally played Hollow Knight and Bloodstained, though. The craziest thing is probably how many hours I already have in Forspoken. 😅

Just some games I recently picked up. I definitely need to replace the case for Crash Bandicoot, but overall I’m happy.

Finished Mario's Time Machine (NES). Another educational Mario game, but this time there's actually some platforming to be done here. (You still can't die tho). For an educational game, it's okay and only about 1-2h long, depending on how much you know about historical events.

Finished Super Mario Land. One of those games I will probably never get tired of. The controls still feel really good and responsive, and the music is catchy as hell. It's a short and fairly easy game, but that just makes it perfect for some quick platforming fun.

Finished The Stanley Parable. I knew that this game likes to break the 4th wall and constantly messes around with the player, but I was still surprised just how wild it gets. The narrator is absolutely fantastic, and the sheer amount of recorded lines is extremely impressive.

Some games from my backlog that I'm hoping to play next year!

My hero!

Probably the last big game I’m going to play this year. I know it had a lot of negative feedback at release, and the protagonist is supposedly pretty annoying, but curiosity always gets the better of me, and I want to play it myself.

just saw the worst gaming ad ive ever seen

Finished Mario is Missing (SNES). I'm probably the only person who finds at least a tiny bit of enjoyment in these weird educational Mario games. 😅 It's pretty much the same as the NES version, just prettier and with different trivia tests about the locations/sights you visit.

Finished Digimon World 3. It's the best Digimon game I've played so far. It has tons of charm, looks great, and has a banger soundtrack. It also has its flaws tho. My biggest gripes with it are the high encounter rate, how ridiculously grindy it is, and the boring mazey dungeons.

Finished Alan Wake. This is a pretty great game. At first, I didn't like Alan as a character, but the further I progressed, the more invested I became in him and the story overall. Although I liked the gameplay, I can understand why some people might have grown bored with it.

My recent pick-ups are pretty fighting game-heavy, but at least a fun little party game like WarioWare: Move It! made its way into my collection too. 😄

Next up on the list is Alan Wake. I've been curious about this one for a while now, especially after Alan Wake 2 dropped. No idea what to expect, but I'm excited.

Finished Little Nightmares 2. In its dark, terrifying way, it's visually stunning. The freaky monster designs are fantastic and my absolute highlight. The atmosphere is top-notch as well. Having the little buddy follow you around kinda makes me wish that this game had a 2P mode.