I had been playing Xenogears the last few weeks and the more I played the more I felt I had a lot to say so I decided to write an extensive review of it. It’s an emotional rollercoaster with high highs and low lows, but I’m very glad I played. Check it out :) www.justinmikos.com/blog/xenogea...

I’ve been playing Xenogears this past week. I had dabbled with it when I first got it on PS3, but only barely got to the second town. Started fresh and I’m 20 hours in so way farther. Having a good time for the most part. I like the characters and there have been some cool, elaborate sequences.

I played through MotionRec on Switch the last few days and just finished with 100% collectibles. Very cool puzzle game that I’d definitely recommend. You record your movements and can then repeat them to cross gaps and clear obstacles. It does an awesome job thoroughly exploring the mechanics.

I posted a new blog over the weekend, Highlights From My PS3 Backlog Part 2. Wanted to share it for the weekday and afternoon crowd in case any one missed it. Hope you enjoy it! www.justinmikos.com/blog/highlig...

someone uploaded a playthrough of mixtape without any of the music to avoid copyright strikes and it is unintentionally one of the funniest things i've seen all week

I just posted a new blog tonight: Highlights From My PS3 Backlog Part 2. I finished another twenty games in my PS3 backlog and thus played a number of cool games so it seemed like a good time to write a new blog! Hope you enjoy it :) www.justinmikos.com/blog/highlig...

I had fun going to a Hatsune Miku concert last night, my first live concert since the pandemic. The crowd’s energy was infectious, the live band was tremendous, and they ended up playing a lot of songs I love. I especially dug the encore was Decorator and Odds and Ends, two of my favorite Miku songs

I’ve been playing Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne for the first time over the past ten days. Was kind of nervous starting due to its reputation of being tough, but I’m having more and more fun the deeper I go. The story path has been fairly breezy while the optional stuff has some good teeth.

I had fun making the About Me video game meme that's been going around. I swapped a few categories out since I didn't care for a few of them. Also oddly, they didn't have box art for Kirby Super Star on the Super Nintendo, but that's what I picked for best retro game.

I finished another game in my PS3 backlog tonight, Threads of Fate which is a Square Enix PS1 action RPG. The two campaigns are fairly similar, but the two characters give them their own flavor. Far prefer Mint, the spunky troublemaker mage. Not sure I’d actively recommend it, but I had a good time.

I’ve been continuing to chip away at my PS3 backlog, and earlier tonight I finished Persona 3 The Answer. Was skeptical about lacking party control, but I had a great time even with some grief! Probably my favorite Persona dungeon crawling experience I played. Sped up leveling was nice too.

When I was playing Suikoden IV last week, I wanted to get the true ending which meant no one was allowed to die in the naval battle. Funding an army is expensive so I had to grind which is always miserable. It got to the point where I muted the game and threw on music and that made it very silly lol

I had been playing Metal Gear Solid 3 for the first time the past few days and I finished it earlier tonight. Like other MGS games I played, once I got more comfortable with the controls and quirks and the story started kicking in, I went from iffy on it to hooked. Really glad I played it.

I had fun doing the My Nine Games thing that’s been going around for a few days. Basically pulled from my top ten favorite games, but I skipped Super Mario Galaxy 2 for variety. Should be replaying that one soon-ish incidentally. Magia Record jumped to third place after I finished it 👀

According to internal files and interviews, Luigi has been part of Super Mario 64 for 85% of its development time. New insights from development data allow us to narrow down when exactly he was abandoned, being the two weeks between February 6, 1996 and February 20, 1996.

I think I’m going to be mostly playing a few shorter games for a while. I played for a little bit already, but I started diving in deeper into Mario Tennis Fever today. This screenshot I took earlier made me laugh.

I finished Trails Beyond The Horizon tonight after 115 hours. Grim Garten aside, an incredible game from top to bottom! Absolutely wild story that’s thrilling and satisfying, tons of lovable characters (heroes, villains, and NPCs), and an awesome battle system where you take big swings constantly.

I love Trails, it’s the best lol.

Have had a bit going on lately so not a lot of free time, but I’ve been having fun slowly chipping away at Trails Beyond The Horizon. I just cleared the Intermission so maybe I’m halfway-ish done? Having a great time outside of the Grim Garten which is pretty dull. It’s no Reverie Corridor.

So excited my copy of Trails Beyond The Horizon arrived earlier today. I finished the prologue and the opening cutscenes of Act 1. I loved catching up with the characters, the new battle system seems cool, and hyped for the adventure ahead. Feels so good to be back!

There’s a local pizza place I loved going to for years a few towns over and I was sad driving up to it today because I saw it was completely closed down. There’s a few of them in San Diego thankfully and I learned one was close by and it turned out to be basically just as good thankfully!

I just posted My Top Ten Favorite Games Of 2025 blog! It's my 15th one I've posted since I started blogging back in 2012! I had a lot of fun writing it and it wound up being my longest one to date. Hope you all enjoy it :) www.justinmikos.com/blog/my-top-...

Happy New Year! Hope we all have a great year :)

I’m working on my 2025 GOTY blog still (lot going on lately!), but I can do some other stuff: Favorite old games I played for the first time: Gran Turismo 6 and Overblood (lol) Favorite anime: CITY Favorite old anime: Hajime No Ippo S2 & S3 Favorite Song: Links by ClariS Favorite Movie: Zootopia 2

Merry Christmas y’all! Hope every had or is having a good one :)

Wanted to share my blog for the afternoon crowd. I don’t normally ask this, but if you agree Gen AI has no place in art, I hope you’ll reshare this blog. We’re all connected online here and I want the message to reach Falcom! Thank you so much to everyone who has shared it so far! Y’all rock :)

I wrote a new blog, "Dear @falcom.co.jp , Please Stop Using Generative AI In Your Company." This blog is a letter of sorts to one of my favorite developers. I hope the message reaches them and can cross the language barrier so they can course correct immediately. www.justinmikos.com/blog/dear-fa...

You never needed GenAI before. Stop using that.

I’d like to see Falcom stop using Generative AI in their company as I’d hate to see one of my favorite developers go downhill and have some of my favorite games ruined. Spread the word and make a positive difference! famiboards.com/threads/let%...

This happened earlier today and made me laugh. All skill taking out these robots lol.

Feels pretty surreal after 6.5 years I finally finished Iroha Tamaki’s story in Magia Record thanks to the fan translation of Arc 2. I still have some more main story stuff to watch (Puella Historia is the big one), but wow it was amazing. Plan to write a blog later this month when I’m all done.

Youtube trying to piece together some kind of narrative from my weird watch history was very amusing. The bizarre award they gave me was hilarious. Thanks Youtube lol.

I’m looking at eshop sales and oof this a lot of pressure to decide if I want to get Yakuza Kiwami on sale before the sale runs out. As long as I decide before I’m 80 I should be ok.

Been playing Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 2 for the past week or so. I flew through the first eight dungeons in 20 hours, but the final dungeon has been significantly tougher and has asked more than everything before it including the first game.

Haven’t posted again in a bit. Been kind of hectic. I have been playing some cool games though. I beat Once Upon A Katamari last week which had some fun new ideas and awesome music. I’d probably recommend the older games first, but I’d definitely recommend it if you like Katamari. Super delightful.

I finished Ghost of Yotei yesterday with the Platinum after 54 hours! It was an absolute blast as it fixed my two big problems with Tsushima: the honor and shame stuff and how it teased supernatural elements. I loved Atsu and her more human revenge story. The combat and more open design was so cool!

I’m 50+ hours into Ghost of Yotei and only have two missions left to finish the story and get the Platinum. Really excited to wrap that up tomorrow. Mainly posting since I wanted to share some screenshots I took today. The game is just hyper gorgeous.

Different topic, playing Ghost of Yotei tonight and was doing one of the wolf team up missions and as I was riding on my horse into the enemy camp following the wolf a bear randomly joined us and we then took out the enemies together. It was awesome lol.

Was at a friend’s birthday party yesterday by the ocean and a family wasn’t watching their dog swim farther out as boats and jet skis rushed by. A stranger went in to rescue the dog, then needed rescuing himself, and thankfully a boat helped. Even wilder, a baptism randomly happened during this lol.

“Hey! Care to trade?”

I played and finished Sly 4 this weekend. It was great fun! Closer to Sly 2 than Sly 3 as the focus moved back toward the big maps and platforming a bit more. I had forgotten I had the game through PS+ so I’m glad I got to play it before my subscription lapsed. Shame the series ended there.

Last night I finished the Trails in the Sky remake after 70 hours of playing. I basically did a full 100% run. It doesn’t replace the original, but it is a terrific, transformative remake of my favorite RPG. Falcom did a tremendous job. The ending got me misty eyed all over again.

I finished the last episode of CITY tonight. It was an absolutely joyous spectacle for the ending. I definitely dug Nichijou more, but the highs of CITY were amazing. I can’t believe how much love went into this show, it is absolutely overflowing with it.

Sad Rock Band 4 is getting delisted. Sorted through all of the available DLC to buy my last songs and download some of the free stuff I missed. End of an era 🥲

Having an awesome time with the new Trails in the Sky remake so far. Aside from some sloppiness in the new script, everything else has been just excellent. Falcom truly captured the energy of the original and the rad new battle system makes exploration so much fun! Entering Bose now 10 hours in.

Last night I finished Breath of Fire IV. It has a really good adventurous spirit with a lot of more fantastical elements which is something I had wanted more from the series. In two of the last dungeons the combat system comes together and is put to the test properly. Great time! Easily my fav BOF!

I finished Lost Soul Aside. It was a blast to play and totally lived up to the rad demo I played at PSX eight years. When you are fighting bosses especially the game rocks. Wish the story was more than just serviceable, but other than that I definitely recommend it to character action game fans.

I posted a new blog today! I wrote about some of the highlights from tackling my PS3 backlog over the past year or so including Atelier Rorona Plus, Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 6, and Suikoden II. Check it out :) www.justinmikos.com/blog/highlig...

Had been looking forward to Lost Soul Aside for years ever since I played a rad demo at a PSX. Was a bit iffy on the prologue, but I just cleared Chapter 1 and that was the kind of awesome flashy Devil May Cry-like experience I wanted. Boss fights have been a big highlight and there are many of them