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Media Log

A little place to coalesce all of my tracking items from different sites, though it'll probably be primarily games. I'll mostly only add new things when I genuinely begin consuming them!! Or err ... preferably finish them fully. SPOILERS MAY BE PRESENT, I will try to keep it vague but sometimes I will mention more concrete things.

(Some media may also have my review from Backloggd listed; the reviews I write there are not the same as my own personal reviews here.)

Each section will be put alphabetically rather than in any played order; most series will be condensed into one entry but special exceptions may be made (usually for games, ex. like the Dragon Age series) or if I feel the need to talk about different parts of it. Inspired from will.jpg's media template and using the stars from there.


Ace Attorney

Developer(s): Capcom, Nintendo

Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Visual Novel

Year: 2006

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

your garbage excuse of a "hypothesis"? i'll shove my entire cravat up your ass because it's fucking wrong. why? well you little bitch ... if you could take a look at this motherfucking updated autopsy report
Expanded Thoughts / Review

There is no way I'm covering all the games, so I'm bundling my thoughts into one area; I've played the trilogy, the Apollo Justice series, and the 3DS games (plus I guess the Layton crossover). Although the later games had their own mild flops and the story felt a lot more meh in comparison to the first 3 games of the series, the overall series I hold very dearly to my heart to this day.

I can say some of the puzzles did make me feel stupid cause they were convoluted, but I still had a lot of fun following the weird hijinks and the cases as they unfolded, even if some felt like they dragged their feet ... I was still invested alongside the story. I wish I could bring up specifics, but it's all blurred to me unless I sit down to specifically look through each game and case.

A colourful cast of characters, some with absolutely wonderful storylines (Trucy beloved daughter!!) and the only fandom that has had me rereading a fic multiple times in the span of the decade since I've found it (please please please, I 100% recommend this fic if you're an ace attorney fan, it's brought me to tears from the emotions in it).

Phoenix and Edgeworth's "complicated feelings" really left a mark on how I enjoy consuming relationships in media and has left me craving for the multilayered exploration between characters that are foils of each other (romantically or platonically or familial). OTP 4 ever and I'll hold up that damn essay someone wrote on AO3.

Age of Mythology

Developer(s): Ensemble Studios, Microsoft Game Studios

Genre: Real Time Strategy

Year: 2002

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

*right mouse click* *right mouse click* *right mouse click* *right mouse click*
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Ah my slide fully into the Age of Empires rabbithole ... I'm not gonna make separate posts for AoE II and AoE III, since my feelings are overall the same on them as AoM. AoM just has a more special place in my heart due to the mythological aspects of it.

To be fair, I also really liked the story of AoM (and AoE III), and it's one I've replayed on a number of occasions, even if some of the campaigns really were fucking hard due to constraits or time limits ... but honestly, to me that's what makes it fun. I honestly loved going through each mythological land w/the main characters having Greek characters interacting with those from Norse and Egyptian mythos.

Baldur's Gate 3

Developer(s): Larian Studio

Genre: RPG, Strategy

Year: 2023

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

I WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE!!!
Expanded Thoughts / Review

C'mon, are we even surprised this is here? I grew up on Dragon Age, the Choices game, so of course I was head over heels over a story driven RPG, and one harkening back to tactical gameplay. Although I am not a big DnD person (I only ever played 3.5e), I really enjoy the combat and all the weird things you can do in it.

Unsurprisingly I fell for Gale and his soggy, pathetic energy. My first runthrough of the game took me 60 hours cause I kept exploring every nook and cranny as my dragonborn open-hand monk. Since then I've done two additional run-throughs as Sylvie and Nameless (OCs), and an in progress Gale runthrough, and a durge co-op, and an honour mode runthrough that wasn't all that honourable with mods.

We don't speak how much this poor game has gone through mod hell and how much suffering I've gone through when new patch updates hit and mess up my entire save files.

Anyway 10/10 game would replay again (already have).

Bleach: The 3rd Phantom

Developer(s): Sega Corporation

Genre: RPG, Strategy

Year: 2008

Status: Replaying

Rating: Good (I really like it though)

Fire Emblem gameplay meets Bleach ... and honestly it kinda fucks
Expanded Thoughts / Review

What else is there to say ...? It's a cool original story with two twins that you take control of (specifically one) and you go through the past (when Kaien used to be around, with an original captain who helps in raising you), and to the present storyline. It's really cool to see characters like Rukia and Renji when they used to be in the Rukon District, or when Urahara used to be captain as well.

The turn-based and character progression system is pretty fun and battles are quite challenging in some instances, and it's a game I hold immensely fondly to my heart; it's hard to not lose hours in it. Considering the creation date of it, it only covers the Arrancar arc, which to be fair I'm kinda glad.


Backloggd Review:

Maybe it's a nostalgia tint that colours it because I grew up with this game, but I had a lot of fun with it; as someone who deeply enjoyed Fire Emblem's turn-based grid combat (albeit late in starting with Awakening) and who was/is deeply into the story and fandom, I had a lot of fun with an original story and characters to explore alongside familiar ones. I never had much appeal for the other DS games that were more combat oriented, so it's probably also why I latched more to this because it was something to take at my own pace.

I do agree it's a pretty barebones combat system, and it moves quite slow (especially for characters stuck at the 3-4 movement tile range), but it offers enough meat to chew through in terms of thinking through skill usage and what to spend your turns on, offering a change-up between the story reading portions and pondering how to spend your action points during the free time.

It's more of a niche title, it'd really require you to be alright with a more simplistic combat system and to have a decent understanding/enjoyment of Bleach's world and storyline, but I think it's a pretty neat game.

Code Vein

Developer(s): Shift, Bandai Namco Entertainment

Genre: RPG, souls-like

Year: 2019

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

It is anime dark souls for a reason
Expanded Thoughts / Review

To be fair I could consider this my first 'souls-like' game since I could not do Dark Souls 3, and honestly I had a lot of fun even if it was definitely frustrating at points (I'm the type that I google best builds, pick one I like, then keep whacking shit when I could try something else).

Allowing customization helped a lot since I ended up making my own OC in it (hi Hideki) so I had the drive to keep pushing forwards to see my blorbo in cutscenes and take screenshots. I can't say the story is anything stellar and amazing but it had me hooked through the entirety of it (and had some neat twists). I think I got almost every achievement but the bad end cause I do not have the heart to do it. :(

Soundtrack? Slaps hard as fuck too.

Deltarune newly added item

Developer(s): toby fox

Genre: Adventure, RPG

Year: 2025

Status: Playing

Rating: Excellent

You are full of mean girls and fluffy boys
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Since I'm still going through the story right now, I don't have any concrete thoughts but like ... it's Deltarune. Obviously it'll be good.

Dragon Age: Origins

Developer(s): Bioware, Electronic Arts

Genre: RPG

Year: 2009

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

Zevran girly through and through
Expanded Thoughts / Review

There's a reason this is considered an RPG classic and we do NAWT speak that I have 150+ hours in this game. Shamelessly completed the highest difficulty even if I wanted to break my own skull during it (god it was fun). The combat is clunky as hell, I won't argue, but it really is a strong brain teaser if you like the aspect of (micro?) managing your team or creating more complex AIs for them. Definitely would recommend mods though after a vanilla playthrough.

Otherwise what a great piece of dark fantasy and great characters and writing, it's definitely shaped a lot of my enjoyment of future media.

Dragon Age II

Developer(s): Bioware, Electronic Arts

Genre: RPG

Year: 2011

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

Hawke my beloved goofy sarcastic meow meow
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Y'know what's funny? I actually began Dragon Age with this game, I found Fenris by complete accident and got enamoured with him, so I got DA2 and played that first with absolutely zero context of what the hell happened in the first game. Absolutely the best time of my damn life. I'm a truther for mage sarcastic Hawke and Fenris. It's rough, the map layout sucks shit, but it had a lot of heart and love in the character writing and honestly? I loved the combat, it felt so fluid that when I got around to playing Origins it felt so clunky to me.

God knows that Chantry scene still lives rent free in my brain and the complete heartbreak I felt in that moment because I did not know that was coming.

There is a reason this is ranked as my utmost top favourite game on my Backloggd, and that's because it has a special place in my heart for its characters and my introduction to the Dragon Age series. Yes also beaten on the hardest difficulty, surprisingly less annoying than Origins but still a challenge.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Developer(s): Bioware, Electronic Arts

Genre: RPG

Year: 2014

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Good

*insert egg joke here*
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Inquisition ... A+ for having Hawke appear, minus for the option to potentially force Hawke to be lost in the Fade sauce. Either way, I enjoyed the story for what it's worth, and the Trespasser DLC was really fun!! I did personally go for Dorian in terms of a romance, and I enjoyed a lot of the new characters + older characters having major roles within the story itself.

Migrating to such big maps was a ... choice for sure (shudders, Hinterlands...). Combat was ok, but felt more ... shallow? Than previous entries anyway, I can't put my finger fully on it since it's been a while since I've completed a full playthrough of it, but it definitely felt a little less than the previous iterations.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Developer(s): Bioware, Electronic Arts

Genre: RPG

Year: 2024

Status: Completed

Rating: Meh

Emmerich and Davrin you have my heart
Expanded Thoughts / Review

This ... does not feel like a Dragon Age game to me, in the sense that the combat is simplified to a point where it doesn't have the tactile feel of the other games, and the dark tone of the story felt very neutered and watered down; it was hard for me to take the seriousness of the world-ending situation ... err, seriously when it felt like the characters themselves weren't. It also feels like to some degree it disregarded the past entries in terms of story (Ferelden?? Falling to the Blight??) and all of the work done by the previous protags. Like literally the secret ending just pissed me off if I'm going to be honest, it feels like it handwaves everything that has happened in the story.

Perhaps I had too high hopes after a decade, and had to watch them crashing down. I will say I did enjoy learning a lot more about Solas and his history, and how the Veil came to be in the first place plus the history of the Dwarves, though it was funny to get all the memory pieces before we were even allowed to view them.

I can't say I didn't have fun, it was a decent game, it just didn't really feel like much of a Dragon Age game to me; it may have done better as a spin-off game rather than being attached to the mainline story.

Elsword

Developer(s): KOG Studio

Genre: Platformer, MMORPG, Action

Year: 2010

Status: Abandoned

Rating: Bad

did you know it took them until 2024 to add weapon upgrade pity
Expanded Thoughts / Review

'Gee Aid, why are you planning a shrine for this game if you gave it a one star?'

Because my dumb ass grew up on this game cause I began playing it in 2012 and quit in 2024 after a decade of playing it (with some hiatuses). In all honestly, if you strip away all the absolute shitty microtransactions, it's a really fun fast-paced 2.5D action platformer if you like mindless button combos, and really fun classes and characters. Not great for the wrist, but I had a lot of fun juggling between skills + combos.

It's also where I got my username Asuraid from, since my character for a long time was named Asuraid, and the guild I was in dubbed Aid as my nickname that's stuck since then. So I always have a little permanent mark from this.

As the game progressed, dungeon runs got shorter and more skill spam became the meta. It didn't detract from the game, though they slowly nuked older dungeons and streamlined the leveling process to get people closer to the endgame. There were some raids that happened (Perkisas was fun as fuck, Eltrion was pretty good, and Drabaki was ... ok), but then they fully introduced a raid system and the concept of CP, which didn't exist before. Now dungeons didn't check for how good your items were (item level) but your total combat power.

And honestly I think that's where everything took a downturn slowly.

The raid scene for this game fucking sucks, and progression is tied to raiding since all the new weapons are locked behind raids. You need to do raids to get your shitty weapon so you have enough CP to go to the next raid. You need to upgrade that shitty weapon to the edge of microtransaction dipping hell just so you can ditch is when you get the next weapon and start from zero all over again.

If you're a support class, you can get away with not pouring so much time into it, but if you main a DPS, you are pratically expected to pour money to improve your stuff, even if you know you're going to ditch it upon the next raid weapon (and need to then again pour money into that).

I mained a DPS class, I mained a class that people could not believe could solo carry DPS raids (and thus needed to either be sub-DPS ... which why would they want when they can get a main DPS hypercarry ... or duo-DPS with someone of your level). So I often got overlooked a lot when trying to apply to raid parties, and we had people need to take me alongside my friend (who was a support class that people wanted to take along).

Anyway TL;DR the raid scene burned me out so horribly bad that me and my friend quit. Love the game, but the community, microtransactions (stupid ass RNG lootboxes to get outfits that have much better stats), and bloat just absolutely killed my drive to play anymore.

Final Fantasy 14 Online

Developer(s): Square Enix

Genre: MMO, RPG

Year: 2013

Status: Playing

Rating: Excellent

I love 15 minute DPS queues it's fine!!!
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward, and thrilling Stormblood expansions up to level 70 for free with no restrictions on playtime.

No but seriously there is a reason I have 460+ hours even on free trial.

Fuzion Frenzy

Developer(s): Blitz Games, Microsoft Game Studios

Genre: Arcade

Year: 2001

Status: Completed

Rating: Good

The AI for this game is insane sometimes like what are they on ...
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Arcade VS party game to see how far you can get with a bunch of minigames while competing with either NPCs or other local players for points ... really not much you can go wrong with. They have some really fun minigames (the bug squashing one still is one I can vividly remember).

Not much else to add when its core game loop is VS games, but it was fun.

Genshin Impact

Developer(s): miHoYo

Genre: RPG

Year: 2020

Status: Playing

Rating: Good

Man I made a whole OC to kiss Zhongli what the hell else am I supposed to say here
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Hard to put into words stuff about a game you've also been playing for 5 years.

You're better off reading my backloggd review below, since if I talked more casually about it I'd just fill 5 paragraphs of blabbering. Fandom fucking sucks, Sumeru is peak, Dendro fucks, and I'm gonna be 30 by the time the storyline is done.


Backloggd Review:

As someone who's been playing since 2020, I can definitely say I do have burnout; for newcomers, I would recommend the game with the facet of 'new characters you cannot easily get materials from unless you have a friend who is further in'.

At it's core the game and artistic world design is gorgeous, it has a pretty decent gameplay loop and isn't as heavily reliant on needing specific team comps or characters for big pp damage in comparison to games like Honkai Star Rail where you can't cheese dodge things. In Genshin, if you have decent dodging, you can just chip damage stuff to death in due time.

The story is what keeps me coming back, considering I'm a lore person, and it's why it's a pretty high star rating for me, though it's marred by gameplay becoming boring when you've been playing for 5 years now, and tiredness with design choices. For someone who likes lore and speculation, I def recommend it, but with caveats that some lore stuff is cucked behind limited events that are now gone (which is STILL stupid imo, like I'm thankful for the reviews, but it'd be nicer to just give people the option to experience it themselves).

(As an aside, as someone who has played FGO for years, Genshin is more generous with its gacha than others. It's still shitty and predatory like any gacha centric game, but trust me when I say in comparison to many other things I've played, it's on the 'friendlier' side/lesser evil.)

And please mod your game, it makes it so much better to not be blinded by generic white anime designs, just be careful about being too public about it LOL or like. Snip your ID off screenshots

Hades

Developer(s): Supergiant Games

Genre: RPG, Roguelike

Year: 2020

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

This family just aches me in all the right ways ... Hades 2 you will save me
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Augh, it's so hard to put into words why I love Hades but like ... fun gameplay where death still has a reward, great story, great characters ... just the fact that even if you die, you still get new tidbits helps a lot, especially as someone who played Dead Cells and got frustrated.

I probably won't make a separate section for Hades 2, but I have played the early access and I know 100% I'll love it just as much as the first game.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2

Developer(s): Epic MegaGames, Gathering of Developers

Genre: Platformer, Shooter

Year: 1998

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

Hey, c'mon, what's up?!
Expanded Thoughts / Review

I remember as a kid I actually used to wake up before my parents to play this game, and once I got upset at them inviting me to eat when I was in the middle of a level ... so to say, I played it, and play it, a lot. Fun levels and a bopping sound track, though funnily enough I've only ever played it as Jazz, rather than Spazz (yeah it's a a name, I know) or Lola, but his gameplay is the most comfortable to me.

Fun run-n-gun platformer with dope level designs (underwater levels still suck ass). Story isn't all that interesting (oh bad evil turtle guy has bad evil plans). There's community modding that's still very much alive, and has modded the game to allow community made levels as well.

Jet Set Radio Future

Developer(s): Smilebit, Sega

Genre: Platformer, Racing

Year: 2002

Status: Paused / shelved

Rating: Excellent

Understand the concept of love 🎵
Expanded Thoughts / Review

I'm sad I never finished this game fully, but it is on my 'to-play' list if I can get it to work on my Steamdeck; I actually had the disc bundled in a 2-for-1 CD for the original XBox with some racing game I never played.

The art style and the music are some of my favourite to this day, though I can definitely say the game was hard for my younger self; collectathons and it's far too easy to get lost on some of the maps sometimes. Although they do clarify interactable objects, they do also push your platforming skills to be precise, which can be hard sometimes with finnicky controls.

I would kill to finish it one day though, cause it's one of those that lives rent free in my skull.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Developer(s): h.a.n.d., Inc., Square Enix

Genre: RPG

Year: 2009

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

Roxas my introduction to self-shipping and yaoi 😔
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Ahh, this was my introduction into the Kingdom Hearts franchise, considering my Nintendo DS was truly my first 'console' (albeit I also had a PS2 and OG Xbox later on), and I can say I adored this game a lot.

So much that I made my own self insert to ship with Roxas LMAO. To be fair, I was around 12-13 when I first got into it, and was lucky to have friends who were super supportive in me doing it and indulging my art. I used to be so against AkuRoku (Axel x Roxas) when I was seeing it cause I was—and to be fair, still kinda am—protective of my favourite blorbos so I was like 'HOW COULD THEY BE SHIPPED TOGETHER'. It wasn't even cause they were two guys, I just had my own ship LMAO.

Anyway, self-shipping tangent aside, I really loved the game and the story, even though I know some people have said the combat feels more ... clunky? In comparison to other games. Having played a few other Kingdom Hearts games, I can agree, but it didn't really detract much back then for me.

Mass Effect newly added item

Developer(s): Bioware, Electronic Arts

Genre: RPG, Shooter

Year: 2007

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

I'm Commander Shepard, and This Is My Favorite Store on the Citadel
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Mass Effect my beloved ... just like Dragon Age, I was late to the party with joining in playing Mass Effect, only beginning while I was in college (2016) ... but uh, can I just say I massively binged all 3 games in the span of less than a month? Um ...

A screenshot of the three mass effect games played from December 29, 2016 to January 20, 2017.

... yeah. I found my old save files and went to go log them in my Backlogged. I think that speaks more than enough to how much I loved it. Unfortunately, my feelings around the ending of the third game are on the common end of that it feels ... flat, unflexible, meh. Like I deeply enjoyed myself, and fought to get the highest rating to ensure Shepard was alive at the end of the 'destroy all mechanics'/red ending, but all the options basically felt like peepeepoopoo by the end.

Regardless of my gripes, it lives immensely fondly in my heart, so much that I struggle to replay it because I remember so many of the moments that its hard to fully relive it again without it being tinged by nostalgia (I did get to live it through my friend being able to fully play the first game, and she went through the entire trilogy). Great characters, great story (barring whatever was going on in 3), great humour. Gameplay is ok, it was clunky in 1 but kinda refined itself in later ones.

Garrus is my beloved and I own the official body pillow they sold at a point. No I never finished Andromeda.

We'll bang ok?

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Developer(s): Electronic Arts

Genre: Racing

Year: 2005

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

Thanks for introducing me to Disturbed
Expanded Thoughts / Review

As my feelings are the same around Underground 1 and 2, this kinda encapsulates my general feeling for the NFS game I have played (I definitely do miss the flexible customization from those in Most Wanted, but I like the open world aspect a lot more from Most Wanted vs Underground's).

Anyway what is there to say? I've lost count how many times I've replayed this game (either due to losing the save files or because I wanted to). I'm the freak that keeps my starter car from the beginning all the way to the end (thanks Chevrolet) and always imagines Yakety Sax playing in my skull when I go in a certain roundabout just to force cops to chase me. Also zero regrets on the final blacklist member to push him to the side at the beginning of a race so he smacks into the tree.

Need for Speed unironically was my full introduction into Disturbed as a band, and got me into more heavy rock and what not. It's also a really, really good head empty game for me I can lose an hour or two in just racing, so it's a bit of a comfort food for me. Ironic that I used to be told I'd be a great driver with how well I played, and here I am with anxiety to drive.

Perfect World International

Developer(s): Perfect World International

Genre: MMORPG

Year: 2008

Status: Retired-ish

Rating: Okay

One of the most goreous OSTs to this day ... cursed with the shitty slutty MMORPG outfits for only girls
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Ahh Perfect World ... probably among the more 'classic' MMORPGs considering its age, which means level grind fests and instanced dungeons. I really did like its class system, though it was very much 'if you're female elf you're a healer/mage, if you're male elf then you're an archer'. To be fair it never really influenced me much to be gender locked to a class, though I was biased to the venomancer class (female fox shapeshifter, the male equivalent were big furry tigers) due to it being a summoning class with pets + was solo friendly.

Funnily enough, I didn't play much of the official game, having found myself locked at somewhere below level 30 because it was immensely grindy + riddled with microtransactions ... and I went to private servers instead. It's where I played the game for years on end, and had a great time with the guild I was in. Sadly a lot of my photos are gone from that era, but when you're not restricted by the level grind, the game can be really fun ... if not long when you do dungeons (40+ minutes, if not hours).

The ability to fly around the entire map on a mount, alongside listening to a gorgeous OST made it one of the more calming games where I could just lose time flying around because I want to.

Unfortunately the actual game itself is so full of system bloat now + microtransactions, so even when I do play private servers, I have to make sure they're the older versions before they introduced card collection systems + a central tutorial hub (whereas before everyone started in the main city of their race, which was different). I do revisit it here and there, but it doesn't quite have the charm is used to because it doesn't have the community from over a decade ago.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team

Developer(s): Chunsoft, Nintendo

Genre: Adventure, RPG

Year: 2005

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

Monster rooms ... shudders ... solo 99 floor dungeon ...
Expanded Thoughts / Review

[come back later for full review]

Pokémon Platinum

Developer(s): Game Freak, Nintendo

Genre: Adventure, RPG, Turn Based

Year: 2008

Status: Completed (multiple times)

Rating: Excellent

Giratina's design still fucks to this day, convince me otherwise
Expanded Thoughts / Review

What can I say about the Pokemon game that I started on? I remember watching a Lets Play before I even had a Nintendo DS and being so enamoured with Giratina's design, and I think I remember actually naming my Starly turned Staraptor after that Lets Player's Staraptor as well. I remember staying up stupidly late to beat Cynthia for the first time, who gave me such a challenge back then, I remember falling in love with Garchomp's design, and the Distortion World mechanics of flipping around, and spending hours on the stupid contests and making poffins for everyone. 10/10 game would love to wipe my memory and play it again.

The Sims newly added item

Developer(s): Electronic Arts

Genre: Simulation

Year: 2004

Status: Completed (as much as you can 'complete' Sims)

Rating: Good

God's favourite child and the 30GB mod folder
Expanded Thoughts / Review

I'm bundling the series in general into one post, though I have differing feelings on all of them overall. For a quick and easy summary: Sims 2 and 3 are my top favourites, but I've played the original and Sims 4 (thanks fitgirl, iykyk) as well.

I sadly don't have much of the patience for Sims like I used to, especially since my dumb ass got into the stupid mod rabbit hole and got lost in trying to get mods to work for Sims 2 to have more variety before even getting to playing it. I mostly use it to fulfil the OC itch scratch and just watch my blorbos interacting, but I've been recently trying to get into challenges to spice things up a bit.

Fun for a little while, and it falls into my 'hyperfixate on this for two weeks straight, then don't touch it for a year' cycle. EA are greedy cashcows, it's never worth buying any of the games.

Spore

Developer(s): Maxis, Electronic Arts

Genre: Adventure, Simulation

Year: 2008

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

haha pp shaped creature
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Oh Spore my beloved ... I still have the CDs for the base game + all the expansions and I remember being on chat with an EA employee to get them added to my EA account so I could play them digitally ... I cannot count the amount of time I've poured into this game, especially once Galactic Adventures was released and I got into playing the usermade adventures (and killing Stanley in so many of those, I even made one of my own where he gets killed by dinosaurs).

What can I say here? It's a comfort food for me, though I'm surprised there's some functioning left in the servers to hold all the creations that exist (sometimes it struggles to even log me in though, to be fair I don't remember my email fully cause the site sucks at logging you in but this is my Spore profile).

Anyway I'm the freak that travelled to the center of the galaxy many times and even friended the Grox naturally which was fun as fuck.

SSX 3

Developer(s): EA Canada

Genre: Racing, Sport

Year: 2003

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

How the hell do people manage to get such high scores for some of the style challenges, fucking wild
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Another game I played the crap out of and poured hours into ... Elise my beloved.

[come back later for full review]

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon

Developer(s): Etranges Libellulles, Sierra Entertainment

Genre: Adventure, Platformer

Year: 2008

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

We can play as Cynder!!! Finally!!! Anyone else remember Spyro's Lair where you could make your own dragon?
Expanded Thoughts / Review newly added item

To be fair, I actually never played the first game in the remade trilogy, which is silly; I began with the second game (The Eternal Night) and played the shit out of that. Because I didn't have the first game to go off of (and the only other Spyro game I had was Enter the Dragonfly which ... yeah, really not worth comparing), I can't say I thought of the combat and puzzles as lesser.

It was hard, it was challenging and frustrating at points, but I had a lot of fun with it, and god knows I listened to the ending OST a LOT.

Dawn of the Dragon really lives as the primary one in my heart though because of the complete change of like ... bigger Spyro, the ability to play Cynder, gorgeous graphics and just something that felt so completely different to me. I can't recount how many hours I've lost just flying around, lost in a mental roleplay and imagining of scenes. I can't say the story is anything special IMO, actually being able to fight Malefor was cool as hell but it wasn't anything awe-inspiring.

... does anyone remember the old online chathub Spyro's Lair? God knows I spent a lot of time there just dinking around with the minigames and making my own dragon. There's actually a ripped version of the dragon generator.

Either way, I would like to eventually play the first game just to feel out the gameplay and get to fight adult Cynder. God knows I've seen more than enough fanart of her. Make of that what you will.

The World Ends With You

Developer(s): Square Enix

Genre: Arcade, RPG

Year: 2007

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

CA~AAAALLING, I HEAR THE CA~AAAAALINGGGGG
Expanded Thoughts / Review

I grew up on TWEWY, and the OST for it still is among my absolute favourites alongside Jet Set Radio Future. What can I say, I was a TWEWY girl for the longest time and funnily enough the ship of Neku and Joshua was what got me into liking 'yaoi' or rather finally not feeling weird as a kid about more queer relationships (cause I was about 13-14 myself when I first played it and got exposed to ship art of them and I really liked their dynamic in general as characters bouncing off each other).

Aside from that, the gameplay? Bomb. Music? Bomb as fuck. Story? Pretty fucking bomb as fuck. Doomsday on your hand/death game? You can't go too wrong with that. Proof all along you were killed and had something given up? Bomb as fuck still.

(kinda sad I never finished the new release. anyway if you play it, play it on a 3DS, it fucking sucks on Switch)

Undertale

Developer(s): tobyfox

Genre: Puzzle, RPG

Year: 2015

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

You are filled with determination
Expanded Thoughts / Review

It's Undertale, what else is there to say?

Whacked!

Developer(s): Presto Studios, Microsoft Game Studios

Genre: Arcade, Strategy

Year: 2002

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

PG-13 yet they got a whole chick with a censor bar as her outfit
Expanded Thoughts / Review

... to be fair I played that chick as my main character, but honestly I also just liked her the most out of all the characters, LMAO. Mario Party meets adult and slapstick humour. Really not much of a story to this, all the characters suck as people at their core (considering they are designed to represent the seven deadly sins in their designs/personalities) and are vying to win a gameshow hosted by the literal devil himself.

Literally not much else I can say, they're very arcade-y game VS modes you progress through and it can be local multiplayer as well. The maps were super creative and fun though, and had fun hazards/interactive pieces to them.

Zoo Tycoon 2

Developer(s): Blue Fang Games, Microsoft Game Studios

Genre: Simulator, Strategy

Year: 2004

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

Cleaning da poop ... cleaning da poop ...
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Childhood memories ... god knows I have all the expansion packs and still have the original disks somewhere ... I tried to play Zoo Tycoon 1, but it never stuck with me quite like Zoo Tycoon 2 did, considering I got easily frustrated with the animal requirements and honestly, it just wasn't as fun for me in an isometric world. In comparison, ZT2 felt like it had a lot more freedom with decorating and personalizing the park and enclosures.

Zoo Tycoon 2 being in 3D and having you take on the role of both a guest and caretaker was super appealing to me as a kid and I still think it's a neat concept now. I do not think about how many hours I spent in the dinosaur enclosures hiding in a nest pretending I was a baby waiting to hatch.

Sometimes it is slow, especially during campaigns where you're waiting for things to happen, or money to gather, or specific things to unlock, so I never really finished the missions. But I've definitely played the crap out of it enough to say I've 'completed' all facets of it.

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

Author(s): Singshong, 싱숑

Genre: Isekai(?), Sci-fi, Dystopia

Year: 2018

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

I LOVE YOU KIM DOKJA!!!
Expanded Thoughts / Review

I hope you know this is ~1.3 million words. I hope you know I read this in 6 days and have zero regrets.

It's very hard to summarize my entire feelings around this whole novel cause there are so many of them, so I have to redirect you to OT3's tumblr post about it, but I'll grab the elevator pitch from their post for easy reading access:

My elevator pitch is this: something with the cosmic-scale goofy video game nonsense and intricate setting comparable to Homestuck in its prime, paired with the deft emotional poignancy and emotionally-driven fights of Mob Psycho 100, topped off with the sort of compassionate and heartwrenching metanarrative of Undertale.

Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu

Author(s): Meng Xi Shi

Genre: Danmei, Action

Year: 2023

Status: Completed

Rating: Excellent

Shen Qiao ... Yan Wushi this is what you get for being a jerk!!!
Expanded Thoughts / Review

First delve outside of the MXTX danmei books and honestly, I've been having a romp so far with this; truly an enemies to lovers and I'm gleefully kicking my feet in wondering how these two will get together when one side has sowed such a wide gap of distrust for him. The political intrigue is really interesting as well, even if the copious amounts of characters sometimes flies over my head, I do still get a general gist of it.

KPop Demon Hunters

Director(s): Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang

Genre: Action, Adventure, Music, Comedy, Animated

Year: 2025

Rating: Excellent

The facial expressions are so painfully me ... I love you girls ...
Expanded Thoughts / Review

Honestly, I’ve mostly been seeing this around on my Tumblr feed and my friend yoinked me one night for us to go watch it on a whim (though it’s been to our watch list for a while). What fun animation, what a fun story—even if predictable a bit, the animation really brought it to life and was so fun to follow along with the songs and characters. It got laughs and tears out of me by the end, and the songs were solidly bopping

You know it’s good when me and my friend talk very little during it

I’m glad they didn’t pursue a romance by the end, and put emphasis on the friendship of the three girls by the end; although I wouldn’t have minded a romance, it feels like it would’ve undermined Rumi’s friendship. Also the aunt was the true villain all along, seriously if she hadn’t pushed ‘you must hide yourself’ none of this would’ve happened

It’s kinda funny hearing the songs from there are topping other KPop bands and there’s discussion if it could be considered a KPop song

Transformers One

Director(s): Josh Cooley

Genre: Action Epic, Sci-fi, Animated

Year: 2024

Rating: Excellent

Orion Pax and D-16 my pookie wookies ...
Expanded Thoughts / Review

My slip'n'slide into the Transformers hole (like me and many others apparently); I missed a lot of the callbacks to other TF Shows and comics, but I was enamoured by the heartaching friendship between D-16 and Orion Pax not knowing the outcome of it. So you can imagine it's even more heartwrenching after Knowing everything and indulging further into Transformers media ... 10/10 would rewatch again to have my heart ripped out (MAKE A SECOND ONE!!!).

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

Studio(s): Gainax, Studio Trigger

Genre: Comedy / Gag Humour, Parody

Year: 2010

Status: Watching

Rating: Excellent

Sighs, I swear I'm an adult with the humour I like ...
Expanded Thoughts / Review

God, Panty and Stocking beloved … I remember being around I think … when it first aired, but I only remember me re-watching it back in college some years later (and the art craze where everyone was drawing in the PASWG style).

Wild to think these are the same people who ended up making Evangelion for the art, and it’s really funny revisiting it now years later and losing my shit over the Transformers parody now that I have both my feet into the fandom (FEMTRON? COCKTIMUS PRIME? The fact they got the actual JP VAs to do the japanese dub is funny as hell to me).

Some of the humour errs on a bit too much for me (the booger centric episode sure is uh … something), but like 95% of it still makes me cackle laugh to this day. It’s definitely outdated humour in some places, but on a show about vulgar angels I’m really not surprised.

I’m so glad to see it back after 15 years and being picked up by Studio Trigger of all people, they already hit it out of the park with the first episode and I’m excited to see what else they do for the season 2

(I’m haunted by Keith Silverstein in the english dubs, he had a cameo in season 2 with the same Zhongli tone and my friend clocked him immediately)

The Apothecary Diaries

Studio(s): OLM, TOHO animation STUDIO

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Historical

Year: 2023

Status: Complete

Rating: Excellent

Maomao me for real in spirit
Expanded Thoughts / Review

As someone who loves intrigue, I am hooked in what's happening, and I love the details that were put even into side characters, that they're all memorable in their designs and personalities. Maomao aspec rep icon (even though I know there's the whole romance aspect with Jinshi she's so like ... girl ...). Good story, good character development, funny humour balanced out with seriousness, and characters I adore.

Bleach

Author(s): Tite Kubo

Genre: Action, Supernatural, Shounen

Year: 2001

Status: Completed

Rating: Good

Kubo when I get you--
Expanded Thoughts / Review

My love and hate fandom for the last decade or so; I got into Bleach when catching the anime late at night, and eventually began reading the manga itself. Hell, it was the fandom that got me into making my first true fandom OC and where I was embroiled in for at least 5-6 years. I love it, but I have many mixed feelings on the characters and story choices (Byakuya should've died, thematically it'd make so much more sense), and I'm still stupidly wounded over Ukitake's stupid death and it's why I'm taking a star off. He deserved SO much better than how his story ended (and the shock I had when they revealed in a later story that he ended up taking over as a judge/executioner of hell ... and that's years after the manga was over).

Anyway, one of the big 3 from the early 2000's and the bane of my existence.