Here, you'll find up to 20 of the most recent posts from the people who have the good taste to follow my blog. Only public results gleaned from the last 200 overall posts to HG Blogs will be displayed. If you see no results below, that means not a lot of people are following me, or my followers haven't been active in a long while, or they simply aren't sharing their posts.
 | The $80 price tag for premium games on the shiny new hardware does not have folks feeling delighted. |
Nintendo today revealed a lot of the most pertinent details about its upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 console and a few launch games. One thing it didn’t touch on was the price for the hardware and its first games, which launch on June 5. However, respected game influencer Geoff Keighley quickly tweeted on X to let fans know they should expect to pay $449 for the hardware itself, and $80 for digital games. That sounds like a lot, especially for the games, but shouldn’t we have seen this coming?
 | Happy New Ys! |
I didn't write up any summaries for the games I played or finished in 2023. I probably didn't finish many, truth be told. I remember a 120 hour block of Trails into Reverie dominating the middle of the year. This year, I felt like I was back on track - the trade off that I watch a lot less TV and use that time to play games instead.
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus (Switch)
| Some people feel differently about Zelda than I do. They are wrong and I am right. |
I have no way of knowing what the person next to me is thinking, and I can’t possibly hope to know every thought and preference of a stranger I meet online. Even my own tastes and preferences change over time. With that said, I’m pretty sure I’ve never met someone who played and really liked the original Zelda games but thinks that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom “isn’t a real Zelda game.”
Please don’t roll your eyes!
| A funny thing happens when you buy almost no video games for a few years... |
I like video games, but I've not done a great job lately of buying the ones I want. Going back several years, I've told myself, "I'll get that eventually," and then I haven't. The trend kicked in hard in August of 2020, when I made a conscious effort to focus more on writing my fiction, but the neglect had already started ahead of that.
Anyway, I've now fallen WAY behind. So I decided to make a new wish list, which I'd not done in a long while, and I limited myself to 52 titles (one for each week in a year) that I'm most irritated about not yet acquiring. Here it is:
Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key (Switch)
Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream (Switch)
Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
Blue Reflection: Second Light (PS4)
Bravely Default II (Switch)
| Probably the last of this style of post. Not sure how I'll track it next year. |
COMPLETED
Man, only completed two games in this quarter, and then became unfocused and kept adding games...
13 Sentinels Aegis Rim (PS4)
| I have so many games in my library at this point that it feels like a total waste to not play them at least occasionally. Yesterday, I did! |
Ever have one of those random days where you just feel like playing old video games? I have them periodically, but usually I don’t act on the impulse because I have other things on my agenda. Yesterday, I ignored my other agenda and got down to some gaming. I thought maybe I would play and review a game, but none of yesterday’s sessions reached the point where a review is imminent. So instead, I’ll talk about them here.
First up, I had been wanting to finally play the first Shantae game for a long while. I’d purchased every game in the series (and even backed one of them thanks to a Kickstarter campaign) when my finances were in a better place. The series is so clearly up my alley, and yesterday was my moment to finally dip my toes in that water. I… wish it had gone better.
| Jerec buys a PS5, loses 2 months of his life to another Xenoblade game, and returns to Monkey Island |
It's hard to believe that three months has gone by since my last update. In that time, I bought a PlayStation 5. I now have all the current gaming systems (for the first time in about a decade, as I skipped the Xbox One last gen).
FINISHED
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)
I started this game on release date, and pretty much played nothing else for 125 hours until this game was beaten. This was an absolutely incredible game. I love the characters, the journey they take together, and the way the circumstances of the world are revealed was just amazing. Eunie is the best character. Loved the battle system, the music. I did leave a few side quests unfinished, but I'll be dropping back into this later when the Expansion Pass is finished.
| I just thought I'd give you all my take on the impending 3DS/Wii U eShop closure, since no one asked... |
Over the years, I have made very clear my passion for Nintendo games. The NES didn’t introduce me to the medium, but it came close. Mario Bros. was the first game to truly capture my imagination and make me the gamer I am today, before I had even heard of Nintendo. My obsession with the media has expanded to include games on all sorts of consoles, from Sega and Microsoft and Sony, but I always pay slightly closer attention to the big ‘N.’ Which is why it always bugs me when I find myself at a virtual precipice, looking over a kingdom’s worth of games that are about to disappear from the marketplace in one huge event.
| Because doing this every month was getting pointless. |
I noticed with my March update that it was very similar to my February update, and I didn't finish any games. And also at that point, I think I was about 75% of the blog posts on the front page. I decided dropping back to every three months might be better. Game progress is still fairly slow, but that's to be expected.
FINISHED
Muv Luv Unlimited (Vita)
I cleared this sometime in early April. Progress through the primary route was erratic, but once I got to a certain point I just kept going. Fortunately for this one, the other endings really only diverged late in the story so it didn't take much time to wrap everything up. I've got another Muv Luv VN but I think it'll be a while before I tackle that. I have to keep to my one VN at a time rule.
| I've just published the first entry in a new series that I think some of you might like. |
I don't post often here about my fiction because I'm mostly here to talk about video games, but sometimes I make an exception. Today is one of those days, as I've just released the first book in a new urban fantasy series for which I have high hopes.
Death and the Shifter introduces Molly Coyle, a young private investigator working in Salem, Oregon who recently died but now has been revived as a reaper who works for Azrael, an angel of death. Alongside her trusty talking feline companion, Fuzzy, she must hunt down and execute various deserving targets. Her first potential victim is a wolf shifter. But as you might expect, things don't exactly go as planned.
| A new console enters the ring! |
I didn't finish anything this month. I wasn't sure I'd even continue this monthly write-up as my focus was more split than ever. I bought an Xbox Series X this month, with a subscription to Gamepass. I've been sampling some stuff here and there. Not going to feel pressured to finish anything on Gamepass unless it really does resonate with me though. I loaded up my 360 for one last time to put all my save files in the cloud so I could get them on the Series X. The Xbox 360 is now retired, back in its box. It might prompt me to finish off some of the old 360 games I abandoned back then. Maybe.
IN PROGRESS
Triangle Strategy (Switch)
| Visual Novels, Fire Emblem, and Ys - Oh my! |
FINISHED
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (3DS)
This, I admit, took me a lot longer than it should've. And because this was marketed as three games, I get to mark my completion of one of the story paths as a game completion. I'll be back to play Conquest and Revelation in the future sometime. I don't have much to say on this. The story is pretty forgettable, but the combat is *chef kiss*
Ys: Oath in Felghana (Steam)
| Still doing this! |
This was a pretty good month for game progress. I had the first week off, and I'm getting used to my new job so I'm not coming home so tired as often.
FINISHED
Mass Effect 3 (PS4)
| Managed to keep this up for a whole year! |
I've managed to keep this up for a year. I think this is about the extent I feel like writing about games these days. I have actually tried writing some reviews this year, and in an ideal world I would review every game I finished or played a lot of, but I guess that aspect of games writing doesn't interest me so much anymore. I end the year employed, and I feel lucky to have a good job particularly with this antiwork movement going on. I'm on leave right now from Christmas (back to work January 10th), so December saw a little more activity.
FINISHED
Imposter Factory (Steam)
| Animal Crossing: Newer Horizons |
Gaming progress has been pretty limited for what games I did play, and more stuff has slipped through the cracks. I keep it on my list to remind myself.
COMPLETED
Nothing.
IN PROGRESS
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch)
| Returned to the world of gainful employment. Money and Time have switched places, as they do. |
Started my new job this month. Gaming time predictably took a dive.
FINISHED
I finished nothing! I think partly because I wrapped up so many games in September, most of the below are new starts. And also the whole lack of time and being tired, thing. I was also planning to not have too many games going at once, but I got a bit carried away. Heh.
IN PROGRESS
Dragon Quest XI S (Switch)
| The end of my mid career retirement |
I'll probably never have another month of gaming like this. I'm starting a new job in early October, and lockdown is hopefully ending here not long after. So this month, I really went for it. Once I'm back at work, I hope to have far fewer games in progress at one time, since that approach led to me barely completing anything until early 2020 when unemployment stuck and I went on this wonderful journey (or Trails) of games. I knocked out so many RPGs, with a few other genres getting represented.
FINISHED
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)
| Another month of lockdown gaming |
Finished three games this month, all Falcom.
FINISHED
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV (PS4)
I finished this in the first couple of days of August. It feels like a long time ago now, oddly. It has been a long month of lockdown. So, yeah, the first ending was kinda meh. But once you've seen that ending you can load up the game again and go into the "true ending" which was very satisfying in an end of a saga sort of way. I spent close to a year playing through the nine games in this series, and it was some of the best JRPG experiences I've ever had. It does mean I'm taking a break from the series until the next game is out in English, which is sometime in 2023.
Ys II (Steam)
| My first new book in a very long time is available on Amazon, and you may not even have to pay to read it. |
This is a video game site, so I try not to post often about personal things unrelated, even though this is my blog. However, this is one of those times when I'm going to make an exception because how could I not?
As this post's title notes, I've published another book. The last time I did that was in the year 2000, when this site was much smaller and (as far as I can recall) I didn't know any of you who are likely to read this post today. A lot can change in over 20 years.
| Lockdown of Cold Steel. |
Another month. Sydney went back into lockdown in late June, and there is no sign of it ending soon. I had a job interview which seemed promising, which I'm hoping to hear back from soon. If I get that job, I'll probably be working from home in the beginning, which is the only thing likely to stop me playing games for several hours a day.
I don't think I've ever played one game/series with such a singular focus since I was a kid who only owned a handful of games. I may never be able to do this again.
FINISHED
Trails of Cold Steel III (PS4)
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